/edu/ - Education

Post charts.

Im at crossroads between joining - or applying for- a catholic seminary, OR, becoming a (non-militant, but firmly (non?) believing Atheist) . It may sound extreme or stupid but consider this: IF God exists, he exists absolutely and all his attributes are true (remember im working within a catholic framework), this means hell is absolutely true, as is heaven; as I genuinely dislike sex, I won't get married ever–why not go full the mile and be a priest? or at least Brother, Canon,etc? seems rational.
OTOH if Atheism is true ,and I eventually find out in the future, I would-have wasted decades of my life, so better to take on the strongest atheist arguments now, see if I can tank them -or not- and go from there.
tl;dr: Give the best books about Atheism, from scientific POV such as Darwinism, Cosmology, geological time; or philosophy and social sciences (history of Ideas, archeology, sociology and studies on mental health, or, even brain scan\ neurology\ biological clinical science about belief)

My analysis of the imperial core.

- Capitalist
- Comprador (tokens, social justice inactivists, plastic shamans, …)
- Labor Aristocracy (WASPs)
- Declassed (survivors of cultural genocide and white women, incarcerated, disabled, queer, certain immigrants, etc…)
- Working Class (the inherited working class, Indigenous, Black, etc…)

In my opinion, much of Communism consists of the labor aristocracy arguing with the declassed and comprador classes.

Is there any theory which discusses the declassed groups in more detail?

In my opinion, the declassed are an extremely confusing mix of reactionary and revolutionary sentiment. They are born into indoctrination with capitalist sentiment but do not benefit from this. Essentially, they are just really confused. It's not about oppression Olympics, just whether you were likely to hear that the Black Panthers were based growing up.

The Black Panthers discussed the white declassed a little but failed to go into detail. What is important is that the leading fringe of the white declassed will always be the disabled, transsexuals, queers, women and so on.
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So, before the site went down there was a thread about serious, rigorous, economic books about socialism, and economics in general, so, not "pop economics", anyway, any good recommendation of serious economics books?

Title. Answers to this question are also cool- have read Fanon in preparation for multiple essays on the topic and want to back it up with historical context. Obviously preferably dialectically materialist histories recently published. Africa preferred.

General thread for all things related to the field of Ecology, a subfield of Biology that focuses on studying ecosystems. Not sure what else to stay to start the new thread other than may you have biodiverse and healthy ecosystem wherever you may stay at and here is this cool paper I read and a question:

>Cool Paper: Comparison of the Assemblages of Sap-Feeding Insects (Homoptera-Hemiptera) Inhabiting Two Structurally Different Salt Marsh Grasses in the Genus Spartina

Abstract: The vegetation of New Jersey tidal salt marshes is composed primarily of 2 grasses; Spartina patens , which occupies a narrow elevational zone of high marsh and Spartina alterniflora , an intertidal species. S. patens forms a dense, persistent, thatch, while S. alterniflora produces only a loose lattice of litter which rapidly decomposes.

A comparison between the guilds of sap-feeding insects (for the most part, Delphacidae, Cicadellidae, Issidae, and Miridae) inhabiting these grasses reveals S. patens housing a much more diverse assemblage of herbivores than S. alterniflora. S. alterniflora -inhabiting species are exclusively bi- or trivoltine, while on S. patens , sap-feeders possess a greater variety of life history types and show a specialized trend toward univoltinism.

Removal of only the dead thatch portion of S. patens results in reduced species diversity and evenness of sap-feeders on the living grass system. Trivoltine species, which normally inhabit the upper strata of S. patens , increase their populations on dethatched grass compared to the unaltered grass system.

Both empirical and experimental evidence suggests that the complex microstructure and thatch of S. patens provide a more heterogeneous and protective resource which supports a more diverse and specialized fauna of sap-feeders than S. alterniflora

>tldr: Salt marshes have low elevated sections that recieve more flooding dominated by S. alterniflora and high elevated sections dominated by S. patens. An important group of herbivores within the whole salt marsh are Sap feeding planthoppers and it turns out the areas of High marsh with dense stands of S. patens that form thatch having the greatest species richness of plant hoppers. Not only were there more species but many univoltine(only one generation at a specific time of year) specialists were restricted to this microhabitat. Another thing I enjoy about Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

My reading group at uni is reading Imperialism in the 21st Century by John Smith. Is my diagram that i quickly drew up a good supplement for it? Is constant capital attributed to GDP? I would assume when analyzing a commodity's exchange value it doesn't but when we look at the actual commodities, raw materials, etc that make up constant capital it would already have been factored into GDP. Therefor there would be no need to factor in constant capital again… Also I know how much shit flinging occurs on here about value created through labor in the west being "more productive," so more value is created than "unproductive third world labor" vs the inverse of that position; the length of the values in the diagram is arbitrary and constrained for space reasons, not because i think one way or another; but feel free to argue ig. I mean, has anyone read the polemics of Harvey and Smith? They are sassy as fuck and hilarious. Disappointing though to see Harvey to take such a vague and stance on modern imperialism, as well as the dissavowment of China by Smith because of alleged "Stalinism" (lol). I'll link the first video and four polemics they directed at eachother:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRvcGP1ALvI
https://mronline.org/2017/08/26/a-critique-of-david-harveys-analysis-of-imperialism/
https://roape.net/2018/01/10/david-harvey-denies-imperialism/
https://roape.net/2018/02/05/realities-ground-david-harvey-replies-john-smith/
https://roape.net/2018/03/19/imperialist-realities-vs-the-myths-of-david-harvey/

I also linked these for my reading group as additional data:

https://monthlyreview.org/2019/03/01/global-commodity-chains-and-the-new-imperialism/
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I do not care about the /leftypol/ mob, I love reading Thomas Piketty.
>waaaah but his solutions are too soft
Blah blah blah. The thick of his work, 99% of it, is just compiling and analyzing heaps of data, which he does exceptionally well.

This utopian garbage by P.F Skinner (Yes, THAT Skinner, for whom the Skinner Box is named after) has no right to be called a socialist novel and anyone who says it is is delusional.

For starters, the book is objectively terrible from a literary standpoint (like most Utopian novels honestly, it's a shit genre). Every chapter is dedicated to some aspect of the Walden Two "Utopia" and consists of Frazier, P.F Skinner's self insert character in the novel, explaining why Walden Two is so epic and based and wonderful in X aspect to bland and unoriginal to a small cast of forgettable characters visiting Walden Two for no reason other than to be ranted at by Frazier apparently.

Walden Two's "Utopia" is ran by a professional caste of Planners (unelected, naturally, not even held in check by a Party of any kind) set apart from the usual workers who run and plan everything and use Radical Behaviorism (essentially mind control through selected use of pleasure and pain) to alter the needs, wants, and desires of its citizens to conform better to society's needs. It's funny how the book is structured to make this seem like a good thing. Many chapters go to great lengths to explain why Walden Two is a haven for art, culture, shorter working hours, better working conditions, etc, in order to justify this behavioral altering. The chapter on education shows hungry children made to sit in front of food for hours at a time without eating it in order to build "patience". One can only imagine the child abuse going on behind the scenes to make this sort of lunacy possible. Walden Two is the sort of book that is in favor of beating your children.

Towards the end of the book it's revealed that Frazier is a complete egomaniac who personally runs and plans much of Walden Two (But um, actualleh that's totally OK b/c Walden Two has a 4 hour work week!!!!). He compares himself to Jesus Christ and his fellow Planners as his disciples.

Walden Two takes the liberal argument "hurr durr, muh human nature means ppl too greedy for socialist utopia" and responds with "You're correct, people are greedy and evil! Let's MIND CONTROL people into being selfless!" instead of refuting the initial argument as liberal bullshit.

All attempts at implementing Walden Two IRL are either hippie communes that have long since abandoned Skinner's philosophy (as they should) or dystopian torture nightmares that take Frazier's egomania in the original novel to the extrPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

If you guys had to pick 4 short books as the ultimate starter pack on /leftypol/itics, which ones would you pick?

Which ones are the best combination of being essential, uncomplicated and short?