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NonZeroSum
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Polemicist has arrived.

Post by NonZeroSum »

Heya, brought up a new age vegetarian kid, turned vegan atheist anarchist at 15, freegan activist cliche at 19 and now left libertarian leaning, vegan at 25 who lapses into cheese munching when cycle touring on a small budget and feels lucky I never had a meat craving.

I'll post an explanation of my philosophical interests later but suffice to say the username is from Robert Wrights book nonzero on evolutionary psychology and I love Albert Camus's The Rebel, Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics' and another book called Feral Children and Clever Animals.
Last edited by NonZeroSum on Fri Feb 10, 2017 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Red
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Re: Polemicist has arrived.

Post by Red »

Hello NonZeroSum!
What prompted you to go vegan? Are you still an anarchist?
Learning never exhausts the mind.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Polemicist has arrived.

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Welcome! Interesting ideological journey.
I hope you like it here.
RedAppleGP wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2017 5:00 pm Hello NonZeroSum!
What prompted you to go vegan? Are you still an anarchist?
Left leaning libertarian. From what I've seen, anarchist is usually more of a phase for most people, more of the concept of rebellion without a clear goal.
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NonZeroSum
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Re: Polemicist has arrived.

Post by NonZeroSum »

Liberationist rebellion, growing up in a hippie corner of Wales the kids of Irish Liverpudlians moved to the country for the good life, was always in debates with kids of farming fox hunting families, protested the army coming to our school to advertise the warmongering in the middle east, then got swept up in climate camp which was protesting open cast coal mining applications, so just felt natural in line with principles.

Still vibrate to libertarian socialist literature but don't believe we'll have wildcat union ownership of the means of production in my lifetime aha so not sure how useful anarchist is as a term for me anymore.
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miniboes
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Re: Polemicist has arrived.

Post by miniboes »

NonZeroSum wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2017 5:58 pmlibertarian socialist literature

What does this mean? Like, socially libertarian and economically socialist?
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NonZeroSum
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Re: Polemicist has arrived.

Post by NonZeroSum »

hmm kinda miniboes, maybe these links will help:

wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
distro.libertarianleft.org/for/bookshelf-of-the-libertarian-left/chartier-and-johnson-markets-not-capitalism/?referredby=c4ss.org

Agreed brimstoneSalad; “A word in the ear of the psychologists, assuming they are inclined to study ressentiment close up for once: this plant thrives best amongst anarchists".

theanarchistlibrary.org/library/saul-newman-anarchism-and-the-politics-of-ressentiment

Anarchism could well be a quixotic attempt at distilling a political theory from having fun smashing things we don't like, insurrectionary anarchism and the animal liberation front certainly was that, but I like to think its about direct democracy and community cohesion.
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Re: Polemicist has arrived.

Post by Red »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2017 5:30 pm Left leaning libertarian. From what I've seen, anarchist is usually more of a phase for most people, more of the concept of rebellion without a clear goal.
Oh, sorry for the mistake. I've seen some people use left-libertarian and anarchist interchangeably, and I thought it was the same here. I'm not sure if anarchism is a phase for most, maybe just a concept that sounds good but was merely born out of ignorance.

Do you think Noam Chomsky is still in a phase?
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NonZeroSum
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Re: Polemicist has arrived.

Post by NonZeroSum »

I think younger people are more likely to see the world in stark contrasts of black and white and be attracted to militant activism, and so see anarchism as something they're living through their activism and lifestyle as well as an ideal future where all authority is voluntarily given through informed consent of councils of people rather than representatives up on high, grabbing your attention through spectacle advertising.

But yea most anarchist journals are just interested in pushing for small reformist changes to worker rights and environmental preservation. Insurrectionary anarchism is something else entirely, that's why I call myself left libertarian leaning on the political spectrum to distinguish from primitivists and insurrectionists who would have no authority tomorrow if it got rid of the state and the hording of capital.

Chomsky is left libertarian also, he got into anarchism when he was still young, maybe he would have found the anarchist label useful at an earlier age. Either way he is simply focused on good journalism, universal healthcare, worker rights and foreign military/ market interventions.

Watch a somewhat awkward interview where he dismisses those anarchists whose visions exist only in a 'seminar form'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke6YXjaZ9HY

It's interesting to remember that the social identity of anarchist immigrant Jewish workers was a much more distinct thing back at that time in NY because it was a shared group experience - youtube.com/watch?v=jFrlPDfV-yA.

This is a nice graphic comic of Howard Zinn’s entry into anarchist philosophy and activism - www.tangledwilderness.org/pdfs/zinn-web.pdf
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NonZeroSum
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Re: Polemicist has arrived.

Post by NonZeroSum »

I keep going back looking for old posts, so just wrote a list to have them all on one page and split into categories to make them easier to find:

activistjourneys.wordpress.com/philosophical-vegan-com/
http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/User:NonZeroSum
Unofficial librarian of vegan and socialist movement media.
PhiloVegan Wiki: https://tinyurl.com/y7jc6kh6
Vegan Video Library: https://tinyurl.com/yb3udm8x
Ishkah YouTube: https://youtube.com/Ishkah
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