May the Bridges We Burn Light Our Way Home

decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème

to quote Marx in chapter five of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852). Again, AIUI, he considered this class to have no real revolutionary potential, because even beyond how many were outright criminal scum, their desperate scramble for day-to-day survival, and its competitive nature as they fought for the scraps, left them unable to form class consciousness or class solidarity, and simply too easy to buy off; and thus, to quote chapter one of the Communist Manifesto:

The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

I cannot speak to more contemporary Marxist theory, though.

Footnote — to elaborate on a couple of items in that list:

A mountebank — from the Italian phrase monta in banco, which literally translates to "mount on a bench" — is a boastful quack, historically a fast-talking swindler who would climb onto a bench or platform in a public space to hawk "snake oil" potions to the crowd.

Lazzaroni — historically, these were the poorest class of people in Naples, the street-dwelling homeless beggars (the term historically deriving from an obsolete lazzaro "leper," itself from the name Lazarus/Eleazar, referring to the sore-afflicted beggar of that name in the parable in Luke chapter 16)

decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème

to quote Marx in chapter five of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852). Again, AIUI, he considered this class to have no real revolutionary potential, because even beyond how many were outright criminal scum, their desperate scramble for day-to-day survival, and its competitive nature as they fought for the scraps, left them unable to form class consciousness or class solidarity, and simply too easy to buy off; and thus, to quote chapter one of the Communist Manifesto:

The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

I cannot speak to more contemporary Marxist theory, though.

Footnote — to elaborate on a couple of items in that list:

A mountebank — from the Italian phrase monta in banco, which literally translates to "mount on a bench" — is a boastful quack, historically a fast-talking swindler who would climb onto a bench or platform in a public space to hawk "snake oil" potions to the crowd.

Lazzaroni — historically, these were the poorest class of people in Naples, the street-dwelling homeless beggars (the term historically deriving from an obsolete lazzaro "leper," itself from the name Lazarus/Eleazar, referring to the sore-afflicted beggar of that name in the parable in Luke chapter 16)

天使のたまご (Angel’s Egg | Amano Yoshitaka/Oshii Mamoru  | 1985)

少女革命ウテナ (Revolutionary Girl Utena | Ikuhara Kunihiko  | 1997)

ah yes, the cause we've been seeking justice for 44 years of we launched a fucking invasion.

On the most zoomed out and least loaded level I can think of, it is basically axiomatic that large military operation by any organized and armed force will commit some atrocities. It's one of the reasons people say (but mostly don't believe) that crimes of aggression are the most serious and foundational war crimes of all. Despite this, basically no one on here who has ever picked a side in a conflict as 'the good ones' seems capable of accepting their guys might have done a massacre or tortured prisoners or abused civilian populations.

Certainly people seem incredibly resistant to accepting that states or administrations (or even specific policies and projects) that they consider praiseworthy has some price in blood and tears. The reaction to first-hand accounts of said price are usually reacted to as entirely bad-faith propaganda.

“I hate how they don’t incorporate into the beautiful tapestry of my city. They have different social norms and I expect them to assimilate immediately and completely.” Do you hear yourself?

“This is not the same as anti-immigration sentiment I swear.” Uh well you’re wrong.

I want to fucking scream.

I was working on an essay about how states within the US have open borders with each other, and how this makes us an economic powerhouse, but apparently I was thinking of directing my essay at the wrong fucking group. God damn.

To summarize: Immigrants are good. “Transplants” (e.g. immigrants from another jurisdiction who have no legal barriers to said migration because they’re from the same country) are good. People being able to move to new places and live their lives there is good. I fully support people being able to move house wherever they damn well please. Always and absolutely. (Caveat: as in, buy a house in an existing settlement, not build a house in whatever random ass place they choose. Just in case anyone was misunderstanding.)

“I hate how they don’t incorporate into the beautiful tapestry of my city. They have different social norms and I expect them to assimilate immediately and completely.” Do you hear yourself?

“This is not the same as anti-immigration sentiment I swear.” Uh well you’re wrong.

I want to fucking scream.

I was working on an essay about how states within the US have open borders with each other, and how this makes us an economic powerhouse, but apparently I was thinking of directing my essay at the wrong fucking group. God damn.

To summarize: Immigrants are good. “Transplants” (e.g. immigrants from another jurisdiction who have no legal barriers to said migration because they’re from the same country) are good. People being able to move to new places and live their lives there is good. I fully support people being able to move house wherever they damn well please. Always and absolutely. (Caveat: as in, buy a house in an existing settlement, not build a house in whatever random ass place they choose. Just in case anyone was misunderstanding.)

Do you ever hear about "shoujo manga" or "shonen manga"

What do you think "shoujo" and "shonen" mean?

2. You may be having reading comprehension issues if you understood those posts that way.

2b. Like 50% of this website is weirdly positive about genocide and eugenics for real, and you’d be shocked at what the average irl person thinks on those topics, but they usually phrase it nicely, so nobody gaf. It’s pretty much impossible to actually talk in depth about a bunch of important topics without either actually being at least a little “positive” (eg “some positive outcomes of WW2 included the founding of Israel”) or actually positive (eg the entirely “benign” movement to identify and abort disabled fetuses) to genocide or eugenics.

Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is 400 pages.

Howl's Moving Castle is 320

The first book in the Lottie Brooks series is 432 pages.

The Majority of Jacqueline Wilson books run over 360!

310 is not a big deal. Even books being published TODAY for Junior Readers all run closer to 400 and then 200. The kids are alright. They're reading and loving these books.

It's adults who don't know a single kid making these broad sweeping conclusions that have no basis in fact.

Younger kids enjoy having it read to them, older kids enjoy reading it themselves. It's even set up to avoid explicit gory violence to be more kid-friendly (notice that Bilbo gets knocked out for the big battle scene).

And I'd also point out .... a big point of kids' books is that they're supposed to be helping kids learn new vocab, language usages, new ideas, etc. How else are they supposed to learn and grow?

Also compare the Amish and their carve-outs, specifically around compulsory education.

Make yourself organized , enduring, and effective in both use of force and politicking enough and you get realpolitik carve-outs. One does also note that the economic contributions of a group, amount of general disturbance and bother and load on the government and their neighbors they create or lack thereof is relevant to how much being weird can be overlooked and given carve-outs.

Capitalism depends on actually giving benefits to people, and if you just ignore it and let capitalism fuck up a generation (2008) so much they demand socialism, then the decision makers chose their greed over the preservation of the system.

We currently live under unrestricted free market capitalism.

The only alternative to what we have now is communism.

Neither of these things are true. What we have is not capitalism(or at least not what most self-described 'pro-capitalists' would call capitalism), but rather an 'expert' managed economy. One where the people at the top(government, investment class and megacorps) work together to hinder the functioning of capitalism for everybody who isnt 'one of them.'

The US hasnt had true, unrestricted capitalism since before anybody living today was born(and one could even argue we never really did). But it has gotten further and further from that over the last century. So its not a coincidence that things have gotten worse for most people.

My point is that “Capitalism” means something different in 2026 than it did in 1946, and 1946 Capitalism is, imho, pretty much sufficient for the desires of most people who oppose 2026 Capitalism.

Also the role that social ambition and increased competition for academic and professional thinker jobs plays into the “burn it all down” impulse.

Capitalism depends on actually giving benefits to people, and if you just ignore it and let capitalism fuck up a generation (2008) so much they demand socialism, then the decision makers chose their greed over the preservation of the system.

We currently live under unrestricted free market capitalism.

The only alternative to what we have now is communism.

Neither of these things are true. What we have is not capitalism(or at least not what most self-described 'pro-capitalists' would call capitalism), but rather an 'expert' managed economy. One where the people at the top(government, investment class and megacorps) work together to hinder the functioning of capitalism for everybody who isnt 'one of them.'

The US hasnt had true, unrestricted capitalism since before anybody living today was born(and one could even argue we never really did). But it has gotten further and further from that over the last century. So its not a coincidence that things have gotten worse for most people.

EG, without anti-trust I don’t see how you keep the entrenched tech firms from choking everyone else out via economies of scale, but every libertarian I’ve personally discussed this with seems to think that the FTC are the front line soldiers of Bolshevism, harrying our poor job creators.

And we’ve seen the consequences of limited environmental regulation first hand, the clean air and water acts of the ‘70s were passed because the air in LA made you sick and rivers in the Midwest were actively flammable from chemical runoff.

I agree that there’s a lot of regulatory capture, and no perfect system, but the closest eras to unrestrained capitalism were not good times. Late 19th century food safety and workplace safety standards (specifically the lack thereof) also spring to mind.

Total freewheeling laissez faire might work in Adam Smith’s world where there are 1/10th of the people and few firms bigger than a master craftsman and a few apprentices, but we haven’t lived in his world for a long time. The capital-intensity of starting up in certain industries naturally bends the situation towards monopoly conditions, for example.

Frankly, although there are many parts of their system that I dislike, the example of China suggests that managed competition with an eye towards long-term thinking wins out over the “maximize quarterly returns” ethos of the US system.

I won’t even get started on Ford V. Dodge Brothers of 1919, we’d be here all day haha