Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:15 No. 779
>>778 Wew, somebody really marked the FUCK out of that book before it was scanned
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:15 No. 781
>>776 Good thread you got here. Finally found my home here and now I will primarily post here.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:16 No. 784
>>783 I don't know if there is an advantage to centralizing a cybernetic system. Cybernetic systems are in a sense decentralized by definition.
The question of decentralization needs to be answered in more than one area though. Do we want centralization in regards to economic planning? Do we want centralization in regards to party structure? Do we want centralization in regards to the state structure? What about proletarian intelligence agencies? I think you mean in terms of economic planning, but I don't think that is necessarily the most pressing issue.
Cockshott and Beer have started us on the path of how we can model economic systems and implement these models for economic planning. This is an important question no doubt, but I would also like to try and model political formations, and the relationship between the economy and politics. Niklas Luhman's theory of law might be useful here which is why I linked some of his work (not the stuff on law but collection of essays on self-reference). It's kind of hard to find some of his stuff.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:16 No. 785
>>1075
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:16 No. 786
>>784 I mean in the sense that the plan is formulated within democratic centralism, per Cockshott's proposed system as I think it's supposed to be. I will look into the stuff posted ITT, but I thought I would raise the question since it's a major point of contention within the far left.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:16 No. 787
Gonna try to make an effort post here at least every other day so the thread doesn't die, as I know
>>>/edu/ is a pretty slow board.
In any case have some more books lol. These are related to Beer's VSM though, but written in a slightly more updated and less idiosyncratic style. You should still read Beer et. al of course.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:17 No. 790
Really wishing the Watch Thread function was working right about now.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:17 No. 791
>>787 >>788 >>789 Lit! /edu/ is a pretty slow board so I think we should be able to keep it alive.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:17 No. 792
>>786 I think there are a couple different takes you could have on that. I don't exactly think Cockshott's framing is coherent as it relates to that question, and I'm not really sure if he fully grasps what democratic centralism means, at least as I understand it. MLs will probably disagree with me, but I think there is a distinction between centralization as it relates to the vanguard, and centralization as it relates to the state that he is missing.
This gets into a major sectarian issue in interpreting Lenin: is democratic centralism meant strictly for the vanguard, or is it also a principle that the workers state is supposed to follow? Or put a different way, is the vanguard supposed to retain control of the workers state after the revolution?
I think this distinction between vanguard and workers state is important, but some might not agree. Whether you read Cockshott's conception of centralization as coherent or not is going to depend on that to a large degree.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:21 No. 821
>>776 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-96kJSFFVI A scientific defense of the LTV. I am skeptical of his model of planning, but for this alone he is extremely based IMO.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:41 No. 1025
bump more pls
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:41 No. 1031
>>1025 I'll see if I can find something interesting. The project that inspired this thread is on the backburner rn in favor of
>>733 but it is broadly related so I'll be contributing more to this thread in the future
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:23:12 No. 2510
Bumping this thread because brainlets on leftypol don't know why their Cockshott threads are being bumplocked
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:23:13 No. 2516
>>777 Is there a transcript of this?
A question for you cybersocs from someone who admittedly doesn't know a lot about cyber socialism: Who chooses/elects/trains the people who build, write and maintain these cybernetic planning systems and accompanying algorithms?
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:05 No. 2982
>>783 >We have so much processing power now, wouldn't it make more sense to have multiple competing models generate different plans and then use some kind of political system to reconcile the differences? This is exactly what Cockshott proposes my man.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:50 No. 3348
Sounds like cockshott got filtered
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:50 No. 3349
>>3347 >Be some 18 year old >try to read Hegel >be eternally mad because he didn't get him right away Theorylets need a little more humble pie and just say he doesn't make sense to me. He's not easy and this is understood, but when you dismiss something in this arrogant way the alarm bells start going off. The materialist elemeng to Hegel can't be ignored.
It looks like he's relegated himself to analytical Marxists and epistemologists, deluding himself into thinking that this is the real stuff. Scholarship on Marx has advanced past Althusser's idea of a "epistemological break" between the young Marx and old.
Hegel matters.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:50 No. 3351
>>3349 Pee-pee-pew is an anglo, so he's analytical.
The difference between anals and conts is that anals are focused on understanding but find thinking pointless, whereas conts are the other way around. It's kinda like Kant's analytic/synthetic or understanding/reason distinction.
So you see the reason anglos hate yuros like Hegel is because you can't simply understand them, you have to think while reading them, but thinking is for pseuds.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:50 No. 3352
>>3349 >>3351 smug fart sniffing egomaniacs
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:51 No. 3353
>>3347 >Don't waste your time on Hegel The working amount of theory needed is accessible without Hegel. That much is true, but the rest of the article is trash.
At least Engels disagrees wholly and entirely with Cockshott.
>Once again, therefore, it is no one but Herr Dühring who is mystifying us when he asserts that the negation of the negation is a stupid analogy invented by Hegel, borrowed from the sphere of religion and based on the story of the fall of man and his redemp-tion [D. K. G. 504]. Men thought dialectically long before they knew what dialectics was, just as they spoke prose long before the term prose existed.3 The law of negation of the negation, which is unconsciously operative in nature and history and, until it has been recognised, also in our heads, was only first clearly formulated by Hegel. From the little I've read of Cockshott's article and of Anti-Dühring, I think a good rebuttal to Cockshott would be Anti-Dühring.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:51 No. 3355
>>3353 (me)
Other fun quotes:
>Seriously, you can only subdue Hegel by first of all becoming Hegel yourselves. As I have already remarked—Moor's beloved can only die at the hands of Moor Here is Engels quoting Marx in Anti-Dühring:
>But, as Marx says: "The mystification which dialectics suffers in Hegel's hands by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell." From the quoted passage, Marx writes in the afterward of the second german edition:
>Of course the method of presentation must differ in form from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connection. Only after this work is done, can the actual movement be adequately described. If this is done successfully, if the life of the sub-ject-matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction. So, first investigate wtf is going on, then apply dialectics to it. He's saying he didn't discover the laws via dialectics, but applied dialectics a posteriori, which is different than the Hegelian dialectics in that the Hegelian dialectics is primarily internal investigation of pure reason. (from what I understand)
He continues:
>My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i. e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of "the Idea", he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of "the Idea". With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. From my limited understanding of Hegelianism, the difference here is what is taken as the origin/foundation (the arche [1]) of thought itself (I'm probably using arche wrong btw). Hegel sets off to begin his investigation having no suppositions and looks for the foundation which holds all else. This foundation cannot be dependent (mediated) on anything else (aka immediate, aka unmediated), or otherwise, it wouldn't be foundational. This means that the foundation must justify itself as a foundation, a self-"referential" foundation. He basically sets up a thought process in which he finds this self-referential foundation and builds upon it to greater and greater complexity and encompassing power. The starting point, however, and the investigation of Hegel, centers around thought, a system of meta thinking, in which thought itself is the subject of inquiry. Basically, our way of thinking is dependent on this meta-thinking system. As an analogy, thinking is doing basic arithmetic (2+2=4) and Hegel's system is the description of the Peano Axioms [2].
Marx, however, instead of having thought as the arche (and hence contingent on a thinker), places the arche as material reality itself, and makes human a subject of inquiry in such a reality.
>The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion.31 But just as I was working at the first volume ofDas Kapital,it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre '[descendants (original in greek, couldn't copy it)]3 2 who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time treated Spinoza, i. e., as a "dead dog".33 I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of work-ing in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is stand-ing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell Marx saying, "no wait, Hegel is actually big boss."
>In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary. Marx saying human society is impermanent, and that porky fears the theory that realizes this and is not subject to capitalist realism.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arche [2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:51 No. 3356
>>3355 (me)
> Hegel's system is the description of the Peano Axioms [2]. But this is only his exposition of the system itself, not of the dialectical method.
The dialectical method is what is used to arrive at such system. If you were to get the results of such system without the process, they would seem absurd and contradictory. The point of the method is to discover ways in which systems develop, in which many times patterns occur, such as the negation of the negation, and the contingency of two perpendicular elements (use value, exchange value).
Anyways, I'm not an expert in this stuff, so I'll just stop.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:51 No. 3357
>>3352 Conts are cunts, their writing forces you to think because they don't give a shit if it's hard to understand. In fact, the less understandable the more thoughtful.
But anals are the ones who are smug. Conts travel around the world and socialize, while anals look down upon visiting conts and try to ban them from lecturing. So much thinking and so little understanding makes their autistic brains hurt. It's sad, but it's true.
So I would say conts are butthurt from all the anality of anals, while anals are brainhurt from all the cuntiness of conts.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:53 No. 3373
>>3369 This is embarrassing and reddit-tier, it's like he's deliberately trying to make materialism look extremely autistic. The problem is not that he reduces everything to matter, which is great, but that he reduces matter itself to the extremely limited pop-science conceptions. In other words he's selling materialism short.
Unironically, reading Hegel is exactly the thing that would have helped him.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:53 No. 3375
>>3369 I had no idea that Taimur Rahman had made a video on Hegel.
I also had no idea that Taimur followed Cockshott's work. Not to aggrandize, but the leftypol community has been instrumental in putting Cockshott's work in the limelight and popularizing it (however mildly) on the internet left.
On the topic of Cockshott's response, there are so many glaring errors, I don't even know where to start. Again, do keep in mind that I have a cursory understanding of Hegel, so a lot of these ideas come from shallow reading of secondary sources.
>These ideas are not relied upon by any of the contemporary sciences. This is scientism. It is basically ignoring philosophy of science, which is very important and is one of the things that is gravely missing from modern science. And Hegel absolutely BTFOs science as a totalizing venture of specific fields precisely because they take as supposition the limits of their study. They must isolate un-isolatable phenomena in order to study them, and hence are forever doomed to not get a complete picture. And, further, science is philosophy's bitch, science's foundation depends on philosophy, not the other way around.
I'm not sure I agree with this characterization. It is a weird one that IMO characterizes logic as a physical process, rather than a system that exists in different contexts. What I mean is that if true, then it can also be said that physics doesn't exist in nature, it can only occur where matter is configured to perform physics. Which is true to some extent, but also doesn't really explain what physics is, and makes this weird characterization of physics just being a mental masturbation with no relation to reality.
This is some teleology of evolution or some shit. It is ironic that he says "No biologist thinks that there are essences" then says something that implies an essence moving evolution forward. I really dislike this interpretation of evolutionary biology. He just says this as this were a scientific fact. Again, philosophy of science comes to view as crucially important. I might be stretching what he really thinks, but I see this "essence" of evolution all the time in reddit-tier pop-sci explanations of evolution. As if the species had a meta-mind that chooses what is advantageous. It also ignores completely that a stupid jellyfish or mushrooms, or even diatoms are just as "evolved" as a human. Where is this "advantageous" logic in mushrooms?
Here he is committing the same mistake he says he is wary to avoid. Matrix multiplication as such is a human endeavor. He is projecting a purely mathematical structure onto an organism that is unaware of formal mathematics.
Which he then follows up with
>I can not think of any instances in which a useful understanding of any real process can be well modeled by the sort of abstractions that Hegel employs. That's his problem. Even if I learned tensor math, I wouldn't know how to apply it to the spacetime manifold.
This assumes that we have overcome Hegel, which many philosophers do not think so. And it also assumes that there is no value in reading philosophy, which many prominent scientists of the 20th century would disagree. There is value in reading any philosopher, regardless of what time period they are from. Plato and especially Aristotle are still being "rehashed" by 20th century philosophy, and I'm sure 21st century as well.
In other words "Don't read philosophy, it will make you get stuck in a time warp" This is absurd.
>employing modes of thought that have long since been abandoned Yes. And this is a serious problem of so called scientists and contemporary science.
>whilst in the process they ignore the concepts and threads of intellectual development that have led up to a modern scientific understanding. Such as?
>Lived during 1st century BC Oh by god! Please no! Otherwise young people’s minds will get stuck in a time warp
In fact I think a close reading of Marx might reveal a much more "mystical" component that Cockshott criticizes. I don't condemn the work that Cockshott does, of course. I don't even care that much that his philosophy takes are absolute trash (goes without saying that his takes on gender shit and other social issues are also trash). Neither Marx nor Cockshott are sacred cows. They both developed excellent ways of thinking about our current state of affairs that represent the only viable alternative of interpreting reality, with repercussions that impact basically all fields of knowledge.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:53 No. 3377
>>3375 >the leftypol community has been instrumental in putting Cockshott's work in the limelight Don't be silly. Look up when TANS was written. Look up when the translations of TANS were made. That was all long before 8chan. Cockshott has made acquaintances in Germany, China etc. over the decades and we got nothing to do with that. The guys at Monthly Review who are publishing How the World Works also have known Cockshott for decades I'm sure.
>>Logic can only occur where matter is so configured as to perform logical operations, conjunctions, disjunctions negations etc. >I'm not sure I agree with this characterization. It is a weird one that IMO characterizes logic as a physical process It's just consistent materialism.
>>The great danger is that young people’s minds will get stuck in a time warp, >In other words "Don't read philosophy, it will make you get stuck in a time warp" This is absurd. There are only so many hours in a day. Time spent reading Hegel is not time spent learning anything about the developments in the field of physics over the past 100 years.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:24:54 No. 3379
>>3377 >There are only so many hours in a day. I don't disagree with that. If he said that Hegel wasn't necessary, or that there might be more fruitful reading for a leftist, I'd agree wholeheartedly, but he's not doing that here. He's saying that Hegel has nothing of value, and hence shouldn't be studied.
>Don't be silly. Look up when TANS was written. True, I concede and agree.
moo 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:07 No. 4136
A cybernetics reading list from the related thread on leftypol:
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:08 No. 4144
Add ecology to cybernetics too.
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:08 No. 4145
>>4136 >People's Republic of Walmart Very superficial. This is just for getting liberals to change their perspective; so if you already are pro-socialism, there's no point reading it.
>Imperialism in the 21st Century Nothing to do with cybernetics. It's getting shilled on Bunker by "third-worldists" from rhizzone.net, as it is all about the claim of exploitation through unequal exchange. They don't reply to questions about the book (aside from "AHAHA YOU ARE WHITE ROFLZ"), so I doubt they have actually read it themselves. Here is a repost about it:
Right at the beginning he says that the first-world buyer of a shirt made in the third world benefits from the VAT he pays to the government because he gets
some of that back in government services, so both he and the government benefit from him paying the VAT, how does that make sense to you? Let's make it even more simple: Suppose he gets
all of the tax back from the government (that should make the case easier for those wanting to show he is benefiting from the tax), picture a coin wandering from him to the government as he buys the shirt and then back to him from the government, how would you see that as showing him benefiting from the tax? Picture the guy buying shirt after shirt. John Smith says this coin ping-ponging between the buyer and the government is not just a sign of an ongoing extraction from the shirt producer, but itself in its amount constitutes a measure of some of it. So, following the Baran-Sweezy Memorial Prize winner John Smith, suppose a rise in both VAT and government gibmedats results in a shirt-price increase by the amount of the rise and now two coins going ping-pong between buyer and government as the first-worlder buys shirt after shirt from the third-world, this means he is now benefiting more. Does that make sense to you?
moo 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:08 No. 4147
>>4145 >Walmart In the OP I say this is a good book for socdems as opposed to one for socialists. Either way it is useful to read to disseminate lib ideas easier.
>Imperialism This thread is about bringing new ideas, bringing communism into the 21st century. This isn't a cybernetics thread solely, that book has been recommend by many comrades, while I haven't read it yet I believe it is useful to study. Idk this VAT thing seems exceedingly nitpicky over one sentence. If you have an overall criticism of the book I'd love to hear it
moo 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:09 No. 4148
>>4144 >ecology why doe
Yes I think this is the pivotal question for us. I mean there is no reason to believe a vanguard is the way apart from it has been proven to work (under certain conditions) but as Marxists, this shouldn't be sufficient. This is why we need new analysis rooted in our space and time.
I also thing while it seems good that we aren't religious anymore, the 'job' of religion (as an opioid) is being replaced by other things. We have some people looking up to Elon Musk as a god figure, some looking towards environmentalism for their purpose and blind faith, etc etc.
Regrading Marx, he was a product of his period, and that was one of great unrest in Europe. France deemed it necessary to exile him for his writings, you get where I'm coming from? This shaped his attitudes when it came to organising, and made it a lot easier for him to organise proles, since the revolutionary energy was already there. Lenin recognizes this in Left Wing Communism, it is really fookin' difficult for communists in places where there isn't this energy or general class consciousness.
I feel like I missed something in your last paragraph though so please let me know. What do you mean by 'far more workers party'?
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:09 No. 4154
>>4147 >this VAT thing seems exceedingly nitpicky Can you repeat in your own words what you think is said in that paragraph? Taking for granted that what is said there about John Smith's book isn't a misrepresentation, can you follow the argument against what Smith is saying and do you agree with it?
moo 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:09 No. 4155
>>4154 Hahahaha what is your point? Why are you so insufferable?
>Explain the extremely basis concept of VAT to me right now!! I want 1000 words on whether the benefit a buyer gains from VAT is exploitation or not! You've misread every post so far yet want to give me some high school quiz on your copy pasted out of context quote. If you have read the book you'll be able to critique it, if you just want to repost some arbitrary quote about VAT I can't discuss it IN REFERENCE TO THE TEXT because I haven't read it.
To clarify for you, I never said this was a misrepresentation. It is nothing in the context however. because it isn't a critique of the work. Perhaps I could post some quotes from books you haven't read and we could simultaneously wank over how big brained we are and pop-quiz one another?
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:10 No. 4165
>>4155 >1000 words It's a short paragraph, about the size of the post you just wrote.
>If you have read the book you'll be able to critique it I did read Smith's book and I agree with the copy-pasted argument against Smith, which is why I posted it.
>if you just want to repost some arbitrary quote about VAT I can't discuss it IN REFERENCE TO THE TEXT because I haven't read it. You don't have to read the book, since you were only asked whether you are able to restate the paragraph in your own words and whether you agree with it
under the condition that it doesn't misrepresent Smith .
Morphological Box of the soviet concepts of khozraschet Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:32 No. 4452
Khozraschet concepts can be grouped based on relation of these concepts to:
Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:34 No. 4471
>>4452 >Khozraschet Curious what's this term in English and what's It's etymology?
Anonymous 2021-02-13 (Sat) 19:51:59 No. 4980
>>776 Does someone have "How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day" by Paul Cockshott in .pdf? It's his new book.
Anonymous 2021-02-18 (Thu) 23:28:29 No. 5022
>>4991 Thank you very much, anon.
Anonymous 2021-04-19 (Mon) 20:59:52 No. 5484
bump
Anonymous 2021-04-20 (Tue) 00:56:59 No. 5486
So this is the power of anal yticals.
Anonymous 2021-04-20 (Tue) 14:20:34 No. 5492
>>3377 > There are only so many hours in a day. Time spent reading Hegel is not time spent learning anything about the developments in the field of physics over the past 100 years You think I don’t literally do both? I feel like the only people that make up dichotomies about philosophy and science literally just sit on their asses all day on anime forums doing absolutely nothing.
I’m a computer engineering major so I have to learn all this bullshit you’re talking about. I read philosophy because I understand the limitations of pure logic to everyday life and have seen its limits.
Anonymous 2021-04-21 (Wed) 10:27:47 No. 5498
>>5492 >I understand the limitations of pure logic to everyday life and have seen its limits Can you give some examples. I'm really interested in that and how Philosophy helps with it
Anonymous 2021-04-21 (Wed) 10:50:38 No. 5499
>>3377 >There are only so many hours in a day. Time spent reading Hegel is not time spent learning anything about the developments in the field of physics over the past 100 years. You think I will spend time down either? Book cuck. I can't read motherfucker!
Anonymous 2021-04-21 (Wed) 13:01:47 No. 5500
>>5498 The theories of logic of Godel and Wittgenstein.
Anonymous 2021-06-09 (Wed) 19:03:42 No. 6026
>muh science
Anonymous 2021-10-20 (Wed) 21:14:45 No. 8404
CyberSoc thread rise up!
Anonymous 2021-10-20 (Wed) 21:18:58 No. 8405
Could cybernetics be a useful way to convert techbros to communism? STEMlords tend to be pretty technocracy-minded. Rationally planning the economy with computers might be a good bridge for them similar to how nazbol could be a bridge for rightoids.
Anonymous 2021-10-20 (Wed) 21:51:14 No. 8406
>>8405 Definitely, Cybersyn'd probably get them hyped.
Anonymous 2022-07-26 (Tue) 23:03:14 No. 11325
>>11324 you literally do not need to read kant so ignore all that
Anonymous 2022-07-27 (Wed) 02:04:04 No. 11327
>>11324 All this is false, you should start with whatever catches your attention and then go on from that. You will most probably have to revisit philosophers you've already read anyway.
Anonymous 2022-07-27 (Wed) 02:17:01 No. 11328
>>11324 this
>>11327 Just read whatever catches your eye,then if you get interested in what is written you will have a way easier time reading other philosophers related to the one you're reading,then when you feel like you've already read "enough" and feel good about yourself,you can read more specific philosophers that maybe wouldn't interest you by using up the goodwill you gain previously.
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