/lit/ - Literature

Obligatory

>>10827272
>tfw used to be an Internet communist back when it wasn't cool and now seeing tons of young goobers parroting the same arguments I spread back then

What have I done

>>10827272
>positive review from owen jones

>>10827461
>>10827272
That and John Green's Crash Course

>>10827272
i can't take him seriously because he looks like the guy who played Caiaphas in the film of Jesus Christ Superstar. every time i see his picture i hear "weeee neeeeeeeed a more permanent solution to our prob-lemmmmmmm."

>>10827272
You have brought back cringe.

I bought this for my Dad for his birthday when I was 17 and I thought it would change his life.

I hadn't even read it.

>>10827272
Is he a Ron Paul supporter or what

>>10829151
I hope you get your Dad something really fucking good to make up for that
The only book I ever bought my Dad was The Brothers Karamazov

Oh look a filthy commie stealing a slogan from Ron Paul....and a filthy rich beneficiary of capitalism style commie too, the worst kind. The holier than though idealist who has the comfy life and now wants to tell everyone how to live.

The fact that Brand was considered a clown and was mocked for his beliefs which were actually based on an understanding of leftism, but Jordon Peterson is revered despite not having the slightest clue what he's talking about really says something about the state of education in the west.

>>10829333
Peterson clearly understands what he's talking about.
Rand clearly understands leftist rhetoric but he doesn't know what he's talking about. When all he can do is parot "sharing" and "greed" its clear he's a mouth piece and a puppet.

This guy is generally pretty intelligent underneath his persona so it's pretty telling that he won't dive deep into anything, it makes a lot of people question his motives because it's clearly not important for him to find the truth but to become popular again.

>>10829333
brand, a drug addict criminal who became a hollywood actor because (((they))) like his blowjob skills, thinks the solution to world problems is

>we just like gotta LOVEEEE each other man

>>10827461
>Book poses a question in the title
>Cover spoils the answer
Why do writers keep doing this?

>>10829342
who is (((they)))?

>>10829333
One is a comedian, the other an academic. You, on the other hand, are just vermin.

>>10827272
>When you misunderstand the Chomsky rhetoric you're parroting so badly that you crumble into incoherency when your beliefs are challenged even a little bit

Hobbes, Locke, Marx

>be me
>sitting in Political Philosophy class
>lecturer says there are no respected philosophers who say people are not morally equal
>lecture proceeds with the conclusion being that there is so single quality that humans intrinsically have that makes them all completely equal
>because of this eating animals is also species-ist
>John Rawls' answer to this is to basically say "People are equal man just fucking belive it ok"

Honestly I'm a bit jaded.

I doubt Russell Brand has read a book, including his own.

>>10829815
The correct answer is that they have a god given soul, but that won’t fly. It’s a good thing secular humanism is coming to solve this dilemma.

>>10829333
>>10829339
>>10829342
>>10829541
This is why as a rule, I disregard everything that person who built their career on entertainment says, no matter what.

>>10829836

Yeah I argued that Kantian shit in my first year for an Ethics introduction and got the lowest mark for an essay ever. Shit doesn't fly in academia anymore haha

>>10829918
you probably are just not a good student, I've said all kinds of wild things in undergrad phil courses without being punished for it

>>10829269
>>10829156
Somebody needs to write a book about world where Ron Paul revolution happened.

>>10829518
Three parentheses is a way to point out Jews on the internet if you're anti-semetic

>>10829968
...and then a movie...
> ends with Afghani's chearing as the troops withdraw home for a big parade in D.C
> Doctor Paul delivering some babies after retiring from office
> families sitting down together to choose their healthcare
> lemonade stands on every corner
> McDonalds security guards tipping their hats as people walk by calling out what's on special for the day
One can only dream.

>>10829342
The drug addict? a criminal?

Classic conservatism. For thousands of years the human being has used various mind altering chemicals, from marijuana to magic mushrooms to yage, many more

All of a sudden roughly around 200 years ago it became popular among nation state elites to criminalize substance users

Opium war, usa banning “poisons” (alcohol is a poison! Ban it too! Ah just kidding alcohol isnt a poison its not a drug...), marijuana laws in the bastion of Freedom, Bayer company invents heroin (whoops!), fucking hippies, lets kill two birds with one stone... kill the gooks AND the dirty hippies... D R U G W A R

Land of the Free, home of 2 million incarcerated. 600,000 for non violent crimes, mostly drug related

You successfully fucked the world with a hateful domestic policy of criminalizing drug users, giving rise to powerful crime syndicates across the world because third world countries fell for pathetic white men grabbing at the one last claim to power they could muster: fuck drug users, end them legally

Cue some anon equating a drug user and a criminal

Fuck off

>>10830046

>>10830046
There's a difference between being a degenerate drug addict who CHOSE to take drugs and IGNORED the clearly evident risks and then BROKE THE LAW by thieving, robbing, assaulting, and someone whp experiments with marijuana and LSD occasionally.

Brand WILLINGLY took drugs and FOOLISHLY succumbed to addiction. Through no one's fault BUT HIS OWN did he walk the path of a drug addict subhuman.

He is a weak man who blames society for his poor life choices. And suddenly because he talks about things in a mocking way, he is a voice of a generation?

Die.

>>10830162
> CHOSE
> IGNORED
> BROKE THE LAW
> LSD
> WILLINGLY
> FOOLISHLY
> BUT HIS OWN
> Die.
R8 mi poetry lads.

>>10830034
if you're not counter-Semitic* then you're not a nationalist (someone who cares about the health, well-being, and preservation of their heritage, culture, and people).

>>10829784
>Missing based Burke
A really underrated thinker even if you disagree with him

>>10830046
imagine actually being like this. good bait though

>>10829821
watch his peterson interview.Hes well read

>>10829347
underrated

>>10830046
ever been trapped in an elevator with a crack addict? gets a little tiring when you're still five floors from the end of the trip and he's already saying "you know, i'm over it. i'm cured. i'm not addicted to crack any more" for the eighth time.

>>10830046
Marijuana and most psychedelics, OK. They're not even physically addictive. But amphetamines/stimulants and opiates, jeez, that's a whole different bag. Getting addicted to that will fuck you up. I think you need to consider that when you say, "For thousands of years the human being has used various mind altering chemicals," because they differ in quality and addictiveness and harmfulness and just because we've done them for long doesn't mean they're all good.

I agree, however, that criminalizing drug use is pretty dumb and ineffective overall and has led to just countless suffering, and doesn't do much to prevent people from getting addicted anyway. There definitely should be another way of dealing with it.

On the other hand, though, going on a bit of a tangent, I also somewhat understand very powerful (although not even physically addictive or physically toxic or capable of overdosing on) psychedelics not being legal and easily accessible, because if you drop a heavy enough amount of acid or do enough shrooms, you are fucking out for a while. People being too drunk or stoned to do their job well or just in general act like proper human beings is already an issue for some people. Imagine if people had constant and easy access to LSD and shrooms! Not to mention how easy it is to, say, dose someone with LSD, considering its potency in extremely small dosages and its tastelessness, which, considering human nature, is of course something which constantly happened throughout the 60s when people had legal and easy access to it.

Marijuana is gonna be legalized whether people like it or not, I'm OK with that, it's not even that harmful although people who say it's totally harmless and only good are lying to themselves. But how do we regulate psychedelics? Considering that they lead to intense experiences which can cause psychotic breaks and exacerbate schizophrenic tendencies? Considering, again, that a person tripping balls is considerably less functional than on most other drugs and out of commission for a much longer time? Can you imagine the widespread social changes it would lead to and the huge cultural shift we would need to accept that you could, say, go to a pharmacy or store and pick up some LSD or shrooms or ayahuasca casually? Psychological addiction, too, is real. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that if getting access to these psychedelics was so easy as just buying them for not too expensive an amount at a store, I'd probably abuse the hell out of them, and so would other people. And there's not really that well understood of the long-term effects of heavy psychedelic use on the brain, even though we say, for instance, that LSD isn't neurotoxic. But countless reports of people who have abused a lot of LSD for extended periods of time say that these people -- both to themselves and those around them -- feel noticeably altered, different somehow, more spacey and even burned out.

>>10830046
>>10830382
(continued)
Human nature is such that, whatever we have, however good it may be, there'll always be some, and probably even a sizable amount of people, who will over-indulge in it and maybe even ruin it for everyone else, or at least harm themselves in the process. Alcohol is legal, and people drink themselves to death on it, or at least get blackout drunk, shitty hang-overs, etc. If, again, people had easy access to LSD, you have to consider all those idiots who will go for the 6,000-ug dose or something ridiculous of that nature and probably undergo a psychotic breakdown, or mix it with shrooms and ayahuasca, and probably similarly high amounts of each, and so on.

Yes, you can use drugs responsibly. But many people are not responsible. Again, look at this with alcohol -- alcohol is great, in my opinion, but I even have to admit that it's something of a "necessary evil". Prohibition won't work, people have been drinking it since the beginning of recorded history. And there's always going to be, again, a sizable subset of people who will abuse it and use it stupidly. Yet the social and psychological ramifications of psychedelic abuse are probably even more terrifying and unknown and less safe to us than that of alcohol abuse. You can drink till you vomit or get very aggressive and so on, maybe even die, but I don't think alcohol can quite cause the same existential terror and panic that psychedelics can cause. A "bad trip" on alcohol is qualitatively very different from a "bad trip" and psychedelics. And, again, if you legalize psychedelics, there's going to be many, many people suffering from bad trips and stupidly using them, and this will just have some fucked up consequences, IMO. I'd rather deal with someone too drunk than a person who's freaking out on psychedelics.

Moreover, how do we help people who are addicted to certain drugs if there's no legal ramification for doing them or not doing them? We can try to shame them, make them go to rehab -- but that would itself require certain laws and a sort of "criminalization" of the drug use, and it'd be tough to mark the point where a person is responsibly using cocaine and where they need to be sent to rehab against their own will. Change could be made, but it'd have to be very gradual and with much, much effort. I understand your viewpoint, and while I hate The Man as much as any average Joe, you gotta (even if begrudgingly) consider that they have a certain commonsense in what they do. Ironically, I myself have used drugs and continue to, and wouldn't want to stop doing it, but I also see the MASSIVE effort and changes that would need to be made to rationally, sensibly decriminalize all drugs.

>>10830382
>just because weve done them for long doesnt mean they’re all good

Agree. Doesn’t mean they are all bad either. your cup of tea happens to be filled mushrooms; theirs, a needle filled with heroin

To be clear i am a psychedelic and dissociative user. I have never done meth nor heroin. Yet who am i to judge? So long as you dont hurt others i get it (when you hurt others while under the influence, it isnt the substances fault). Some meth users never end up doing meth again. I have met plenty, heroin users as well, try it once, never to try it again (despite the “not even once” campaign)

Good luck regulating substances, that is all i will say. The dark net markets circumvent all need for governmental authority, and tools like monero and pgp will allow individuals to decide for themselves regardless of wanna be baby sitters

Meanwhile Jeff Sessions attempts to keep pot illegal. Cyberpunk

>>10830426
>To be clear i am a psychedelic and dissociative user
My nigga, same.

>>10830426
>(when you hurt others while under the influence, it isnt the substances fault)
child who still thinks only in terms of "blame". the causative factor doesn't matter, the only reason people want to ban the drug is because they think it possesses moral culpability! dummies!!! only ppl do dat!! drug r fine..

>>10830409
I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, few care to recognize this is an issue

I agree with you in general that some unfortunately hurt themselves using these substances

However i dont think this is something you can fix through law.

This isnt to say that i want lsd users to take way too much and hurt themselves, quite the opposite

I want local community governments (i am actively opposed to federalism/nationalism) to provide resources to promote safe use. Whether that means dosage, how to safely use needles, etc

I want all substances legalized. All prisoners convicted for substance violations to be pardoned. I subscribe to communitarian anarchism yet i know capitalists would love a special tax applied to “degenerate” products, much like pot in colorado, which can be applied towards addiction clinics and education

The problem of people potentially hurting themselves with substances is an issue we have whether they are legal or not- however, it seems to me keeping substances illegal increases the chances that overdoses and other acts of substance harm will be unreported

We can use tax dollars to help addicts

>>10829541

And yet the comedian can get basic facts right. Peterson isn't an academic, he's a fucking retard.

>>10830382
> I'd probably abuse the hell out of them, and so would other people.

using psychedelics frivolously and without respect increases the risk of a bad trip. people tend to avoid overuse after such an experience.

>>10830461

>child
Someone once told me, takes one to know one

>Correlation=/=causation
I misspoke. Wittgenstein made it clear language hinders our ability to communicate perfectly

>the only reason people want to ban drugs
What? They are banned right now

>only ppl do dat!! drug r fine..
I dont blame the drug or the human to be clear. The current establishment blames the drug

>>10830511
>people tend to avoid overuse after such an experience.
Good point, I'll admit.

>>10830494
Also a good point. But it would clearly require a complete overhaul of many systems, the implementation of a lot of new systems, just a general huge education of many people and a lot of effort. Which I'm not against, just pointing out that "decriminalize a drug" shouldn't be seen as the last step and ticket to Eden, but the first step in a long process. Hell, we can see this now even with the legalization of marijuana throughout various US states, where you get a lot of horror stories of people "overdosing" on edibles, which, "funny" and "harmless" nature of weed aside, can be surprisingly terrifying and uncomfortable, and even kids accidentally eating them. An argument against weed? No. Just saying nothing is black and white and the more we want to decriminalize more drugs, the more and more effort we're going to have to put in the more responsible we'll have to be and much more knowledgeable. What to do if your friend is freaking out on acid or a psychedelic in general? What to do if you suspect someone is overdosing on cocaine or heroin or you don't even know what drug? etc. Overall, I respect the view that:

>I want local community governments (i am actively opposed to federalism/nationalism) to provide resources to promote safe use. Whether that means dosage, how to safely use needles, etc

It just would take a lot of effort. If people are up for that, it would be great.

>>10830494
I don't want my tax dollars wasted on helping idiots that made the choice to take drugs knowing they are addictive.

>>10830613
And also, it's retarded to assume once they are addicted to something they have no control over their lives. I know addiction can make you take drastic measures and immoral ones at that to get a hit, I've known people personally who did it; robbing houses, stealing money from parents, etc., but there are always choices.
They made the wrong choices, too fucking bad.

>>10827494
Add Steven Pinker's new book and you have the perfect combination!

>>10829347
kek

>>10830162
He has bipolar disorder, which has a 70% comorbidity with substance abuse disorder.

>>10829815
>lecturer says there are no respected philosophers who say people are not morally equal
what

>>10829939
Depends on your teacher as well. I argued some dumb shit in my philosophy of mind class and i got an 8.5 out of 10. Then when i actually took some effort for another teacher at that very same course, i got a 6/10.

>>10827461
The Algorithm happened

>>10827461
Looney Tunes happened

>>10830832
>hiding behind a disorder to justify conscious choices

What a joke.

>>10830868
lol you'd think that if someone decides to lose his time creating fake book excerpts he'd at least use a believable typography. this basically looks like the teacher asked for gap lines to her comments

>>10830613
your tax dollars are already being spent on drug enforcement and prisons. it costs more to house a prisoner for a year than tuition at elite universities.

28.35g of prevention is worth 453.59g of cure.

>>10830046
>Land of the Free, home of 2 million incarcerated. 600,000 for non violent crimes, mostly drug related
To live in a country of such freedom requires maturity to exercise these freedoms responsibly. Unfortunately, people think freedom=fearlessness, and think there are no negative consequences for there actions. Fear is what makes people fall in line.

>>10830524
I cannot say that I've ever read Wittgenstein in my entire life, but isn't language the best medium for communication we have? Short of telepathy or something equally unimaginable to me, that is.

>>10832065
Additionally, have you ever met a human who cannot use language to communicate? I don't think any way they try to communicate works equivalent or better to language, desu.