Sophie's Thoughts (big and small)

I think it's important to understand firstly that UBI is a non reformist reform, so in real terms it could create a moment that frees up more of the working class to organise and fight. Secondly, it's important to understand Graeber's analysis in the context of him describing a revolt of the caring classes (which I believe is stalled but still coming). Thirdly it should be acknowledged how far right and anti-human our govt in the UK has gotten in the years since he wrote it. All of this comes together to a situation where the state exists in flagrant and naked opposition to the working class, UBI is not achievable without made organising and at this point it would only be a pacification tactic by the ruling class. I think that advocating it at the time he was in the context he was was fairly worthwhile although it still marries the month to month survival of the working class much more to the state and pushes back against any anti imperialist consciousness, which is again, the only way we can fight to make the society of the future better.

I support women's wrongs so I think it's okay for a mushroom to lie.

I wasn't aware of this one before but now I really really really want to forage for them even if I just get some nice pictures. I did find a (very differently shaped) violet mushroom that looked like it gave off a little glow a while ago, and sadly I didn't bring a proper camera so I couldn't get a good picture of it

Hi Grem!!!

I only really use tumblr when I have energy to write a bunch haha but I lurk

Thank for this thoughtful and sparkling question!

A crucial point of the exercise in Conspiracy on the Left is that "the FBI killed Martin Luther King" is a belief that is not accepted by what we call "authorised knowledge" but arguably is backed up by it. We find ourselves in a conundrum with regard to our own beliefs because we can be sceptical but ultimately we do believe them. So if the mainstream consensus agrees for instance that Becky said she was going to kill John, and also that she was found holding a smoking gun over John's body, but Becky says she didn't, we can see how we have to form our own conclusions based on available facts and sometimes against the claims of others.

So to step back from the language of believe for a second, both "the FBI killed MLK" and "climate change makes socialism inevitable" are 'knowledge claims'. Yes we should be sceptical, but ultimate scepticism requires material, empirical and rational analysis, not just opposition. I believe the statement to be true and intend to elaborate on, for instance, the economics of it in later writing, but I do encourage others to think about on their own terms. That said I have found all arguments so far to the contrary to be pale and unconvincing. The fact that capitalism can't stop climate change is just that, a fact. However the main drives toward a capitalist solution revolve around speculative markets, fictitious capital and a promise that borrowing on the credit of the future will allow them to somehow engineer a way out. As an absolute baseline, socialists should also be allowed to make a similar claim "socialism can stop climate change" and have it evaluated rationally, and if the truth of it bears out and enough people understand it then revolution is inevitable. We have to continuously and urgently incorporate the human element into "predictions" and one such way we can do that is to see what facts will be self evident to people as conditions change.

To lay out my points a little more clearly for evaluation:

-capitalism cannot stop climate change (known fact)

-capitalism will exacerbate climate change to a point where capitalism is impossible (reasonable conclusion from known fact)

-at some point before this happens, people will become aware it is going to happen and abandon capitalism (knowledge claim)

-if we work towards socialism now, the socialism we could have would be better than one we are forced into (reasonable assertion but still of course, a knowledge claim)

Probably at the moment the Reishi, because they're just so insistently slow. They grow sturdy and woody over the course of several weeks and because of it the only way to really consume them is to brew them into a tea and to do that you really need to simmer them all day. So there's the scale of time of the tens of thousands of years over which humans have been living with and cultivating Reishi mushrooms, and then there's the scale of weeks over which they grow, and then there's the scale of hours that they have to boil and at the end of it all you have a lovely cup of tea with someone special. I recommend adding ginger for some tang

I did!

You ever read a text and it feels like two texts simultaneously?

I think that desert can be looked at from a "doomer" and anti-civ perspective, from which I find it to be quite like all other similar writing, unimaginative where it counts. I think it can also be looked at from an anarcho nihilist perspective, from which I think it's quite sensible and worth a read.

In essence I find its analysis of the impossibility of revolution to be flat, because a crucial feature of what I see as likely to emerge is a preponderance of post capitalist states of various kinds and probably some autonomous zones besides, and so in reality the anarchists in such a world will exist alongside a variety of other political orders. I personally believe that we will see emerging communist parties and governments through the collapse of American Imperialism and they will probably work together, and furthermore I think that due to the nature of precarity and salvage accumulation anarchists in such a world may find these governments to be quite different in character to authoritarian communist governments of the past. To unpack that a little, anarchist communities are likely to form in economic and sociopolitical spaces where climate change makes life, society and economic production more precarious. Anarchists are capable of dealing with precarity in a way that states aren't, but pragmatic anarchists are also capable of interfacing with society in ways that distances them from the state.

So where Desert talks about "global anarchist revolution" and then having ruled that out specifically, moves on from revolution as a concept, I think it could take a clearer-eyed view of the possibility of revolution that's less ideologically pure, still results in there being people here tomorrow, and presents a long term future for a potential better world. Was global anarchist revolution particularly likely before it was on the clock? None of this is me asking any anarchists to support any vanguardists, which would be silly, but just to recognise that a vanguardist could and probably will exist who you have better odds with than a neoliberal capitalist. Besides a big point I want to make in future work is that revolution in any place can have a multi faceted character and I think that eco feminist socialist revolution may well happen in many places, whether it puts the eco, the socialist or the feminist first, with varying results. Eg ecofeminists who want to save the planet and abolish the patriarchy must be materialists in order to get anywhere and would recognise the necessity of socialism to fight climate change.

Now it's prescriptions on the other hand, I quite like. I especially enjoyed "conservation is our government"

Wow, thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to publishing what I'm working on at the moment because TWINE is really a premise of most of the politics I'm working through rn, so hopefully lots more that will hit with everyone who's enjoyed this video.

I say that I'm not trying to give people hope because 1) I believe what I've said to be true and based in materialism and 2) because the kind of socialism we'll have if we're forced into it will still be a horrible struggle, and I'd much much rather that everyone take care of each other now.

The biggest thing on my mind at the moment is how much we need to fight capitalism specifically by slowing down, quiet-quitting, dropping out and generally just removing ourselves from the sovereignty of capital by spending our time and labour on taking care of each other now.

Crazy story I set myself a 9 essay collection to work on and then life happened to me big and hard 🙃

I still fully intend to publish Cyberpunk Current Year: A Direction For The Online Left, but it's gonna take a lot of time, and probably at this point a lot of rewriting because it's hard to keep it up to date with politics and the changes to social media and by consequence the online left. I put some really important elements from it into The World Is Not Ending, specifically from essay 2 "Against the Blackpill" but there's a lot more to say and I do intend to say it

I've been working on this video for nearly 2 years and there are like 13 little gaps on the timeline I need to fill in and if I can juuuust edit a liiiittle bit more today Oh No I Logged Onto Tumblr Again

Well maybe if someone sends me money to get mcdonalds... I can motivate myself... to have a little borger... and keep scrolling tumblr :3

A WIP cut was just uploaded you should check it out

Well I have climbing on Wednesdays, so it's never Wednesdays, and RP is Sunday so it ain't then, unless I'm deliberately streaming right before RP. Other than that I can't help you. I'm gonna try to stream more frequent if not more regular once TWINE is done

Thanks I really enjoyed being on the *squints* uhhh... Tube... Fucker?

Unfortunately yes. I love Jess and Jo and making the show was really fun but I just didn't have the time or energy and we let it slip by us

My twitch audience is wayyy overdue a pinko stream but I haven't been able to arrange it because I've been busy and she hasn't been able to do it because she has circus flu. Every 3 minues or so there's a loud honk and a hanky flies out of her nose. I mean if she's lucky it's just one hanky...

People say this to me surprisingly often

The Leonard Cohen song Everybody Knows is mostly about an unfaithful partner I guess, but it's also about Marxism lol

The opening lyrics (I'm remembering not reading from somewhere don't @ me) are something like:

everybody knows that the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

everybody knows that the war is over, everybody knows that the good guys lost

everybody knows that the fight was fixed, the poor stay poor, the rich get rich, that's the way it goes, everybody knows

And I just think that's a fantastic encapsulation of the Marxist description of ideology "Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es" - they don't know what they are doing, nonetheless they are doing it. I have a little wordplay on this to make it more accessible for myself: "Sie wissen dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es" - they know that it is nothing, and still they do it. I say this because a lot of the time the most ripe and obvious outbursts of ideology are places where the participants are unaware, but I think they just as often also know how their ideology works, but view it as abstract and therefore harmless. They know that it is "nothing" but they still do it.

Jess Phillips saying that neoliberalism is a meaningless word is "sie wissen das nicht". People who consider the use of nuclear weapons abhorrent working on nuclear weapons systems is "sie wissen dass es nichts ist"

Everybody knows. That's how it goes

Ooooo hey this is such a sweet suggestion thank you so much! I'll try to figure out if I can buy some spawn when I get my patreon money in. I have a great book by Stamets called Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms and it's got really helpful tips for growing all sorts of stuff Inc tarragon oysters. Actually I bet Nat will love these, I'm getting more hyped the more I think abt this haha thank you!