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Riot Bimbo
Dec 28, 2006


TEAYCHES posted:

most 17 year olds arent that smart, though they might consider that in retrospect

I was, but i also knew i was gonna burn out way before completing a degree so i took a path that ended where i could still land on my feet. Taking out loabs for any reason disgusts me and did back then too

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5-HT
Oct 17, 2012

TEAYCHES posted:

i probably cant buy a house but for the past 6 years ive been renting apartments and bought a new car without issue. the reason for that is that so many people are in the same situation and dont or wont pay back their student loans. esp. after 2008 poor credit isnt weird. if people didnt rent or loan out to people who didnt pay their student loans, the #1 debt in in the nation, they wouldnt be doing business with anyone at all

bro, I was in uni back then. not every person who graduated in that period is a broke foreverpoor. accepting responsibility is the first step.

Cake Smashing Boob
Nov 5, 2008

I support black genocide

Tom Collins posted:

Why do you think the government should step in and try to make up for how much better I naturally am than you are?

Because I'm in it and I want more power/stuff

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN
Jun 26, 2009



TEAYCHES posted:

But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call 'human nature,' the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival-so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be' is the question 'to' think or not to think.'

A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. 'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it. 'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.

There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not; it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and-self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it does; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

"A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.

An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil. It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.

Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An 'instinct' is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him t9 perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer-and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

A living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil, would not survive. A plant that struggled to mangle its roots, a bird that fought to break its wings would not remain for long in the existence they affronted. But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and to destroy his mind.

Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice: he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice.

A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

Whoever you are, you who are hearing me now, I am speaking to whatever living remnant is left uncorrupted within you, to the remnant of the human, to your mind, and I say: There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.

All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being-not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement-not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.

Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man-for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.

Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death. Such a being is a metaphysical monstrosity, struggling to oppose, negate and contradict the fact of his own existence, running blindly amuck on a trail of destruction, capable of nothing but pain.

Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness-to value the failure of your values-is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man-every man-is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the2 achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.

is this the gentleman's "i can't even"?

Salt Fish
Sep 11, 2003

Cybernetic Crumb
American capitalism is so vile that we should replace it even if we know that the replacement is doomed to fail.

Rodnik
Dec 20, 2003

5-HT posted:

bro, I was in uni back then. not every person who graduated in that period is a broke foreverpoor. accepting responsibility is the first step.

Good for you, but you are one of the lucky ones.

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp

5-HT posted:

bro, I was in uni back then. not every person who graduated in that period is a broke foreverpoor. accepting responsibility is the first step.
How much did you pay for your degree and what job did you get out of college?

Bulgogi Hoagie
Jun 1, 2012

We
all political systems stemming from Russia are bad OP

Bulgogi Hoagie
Jun 1, 2012

We

Salt Fish posted:

American capitalism is so vile that we should replace it even if we know that the replacement is doomed to fail.

American capitalism is great you guys basically have a limitless supply of funding so your problem is the lack of a strong socialist lobby really

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
Capitalism is really cool and good just not all by itself.

communism bitch
Apr 24, 2009

Lichy posted:

all political systems stemming from Russia are bad OP

:agreed:, that ruskie gently caress marx shoulda kept his mouth shut

sketch_nimrod
Apr 1, 2010
cuba did a pretty solid job, lets all be them

sketch_nimrod
Apr 1, 2010
tropical communism i can get behind

Miltank
Dec 27, 2009

by XyloJW

TEAYCHES posted:

i took out loans, loans i will never pay back

Me too. I did this too.

Venom Snake
Feb 19, 2014

by Nyc_Tattoo

Lichy posted:

all political systems stemming from Russia are bad OP

Russia doesn't make political systems it destroys them in interesting ways noone thought possible.

Miltank
Dec 27, 2009

by XyloJW
Capital sucks money out of society's institutions like a leech or a tick.

Salt Fish
Sep 11, 2003

Cybernetic Crumb

Lichy posted:

American capitalism is great you guys basically have a limitless supply of funding so your problem is the lack of a strong socialist lobby really

Wow its almost like rich people arranged to keep all the money for themselves.

Twat Nosferatu
Aug 14, 2008

Oberleutnant posted:


liek + share if u agree

Beria was the biggest Gansta.

Zeluth
May 12, 2001

by Fluffdaddy
There was this librarian. I could talk to her about everything.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

Cake Smashing Boob posted:

I'm a cultural marxist AMA

I'm a cultural third world Maoist.

5-HT
Oct 17, 2012

Tsinava posted:

How much did you pay for your degree and what job did you get out of college?

rode in on a scholarship to a catholic uni after doing 2 years at a CC. only took out a 6K loan that i've already paid off. got a bs. working on figuring out what I want to do post-grad. running a business and racking up clinic hours on the side since i'm still strongly considering med school or doing something else in med.

communism bitch
Apr 24, 2009

5-HT posted:

rode in on a scholarship to a catholic uni after doing 2 years at a CC. only took out a 6K loan that i've already paid off. got a bs. working on figuring out what I want to do post-grad. running a business and racking up clinic hours on the side since i'm still strongly considering med school or doing something else in med.

bourgie, eh?

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp

5-HT posted:

rode in on a scholarship to a catholic uni after doing 2 years at a CC. only took out a 6K loan that i've already paid off. got a bs. working on figuring out what I want to do post-grad. running a business and racking up clinic hours on the side since i'm still strongly considering med school or doing something else in med.

you should go to med school. :)

skeletonotherkin
Sep 26, 2014

I majored in art, went to an affordable uni, and due to working the entire time and the generosity of my folks/grandparents graduated with very little debt. Now I clean carpet, because I'll be damned if I join the ranks of the petite bourgeois scum.

5-HT
Oct 17, 2012

Oberleutnant posted:

bourgie, eh?

nope. family is barely lower middle class.

Tsinava posted:

you should go to med school. :)

keep wavering because of how poo poo the system is in the USA for doctors. well that, and most med students are horrible privileged 3rd world types (think upper caste brahmin indians like khans, and wealthy 1st gen chinese) who only care about doing surgery or some other super specialized residency for the $$$$$$$ and the prestige it'll bring their family. tbh, the only normal residents i've encountered have all been internal med, pediatrics, and psych.

there's a decent chance i'll just say gently caress it and do medicinal chemistry.

SplitSoul
Dec 31, 2000

i'm culturally marxist and economically confurvative

skeletonotherkin
Sep 26, 2014

I'm socially liberal and fiscally exploitive.

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
i'm a Daddy's Baby human being

communism bitch
Apr 24, 2009

5-HT posted:

nope.family is barely lower middle class.

Ah.... kulaks, then

Dave Concepcion
Mar 19, 2012
contemporary socialism/communism is hosed forever since they've made it practically mandatory to embrace all kinds of retarded poo poo like fat acceptance. I want my socialists handsome and chiseled like the ones from soviet propaganda posters, if what you have to offer is that loving maoist anime genderqueer human being that keeps popping up everywhere, I'd rather throw in my lot with citibank and watch the world burn

Miltank
Dec 27, 2009

by XyloJW
Socialism doesn't really need that stupid sjw stuff imo

communism bitch
Apr 24, 2009

Dave Concepcion posted:

contemporary socialism/communism is hosed forever since they've made it practically mandatory to embrace all kinds of retarded poo poo like fat acceptance. I want my socialists handsome and chiseled like the ones from soviet propaganda posters, if what you have to offer is that loving maoist anime genderqueer human being that keeps popping up everywhere, I'd rather throw in my lot with citibank and watch the world burn

um im a communist who thinks fatties are literlaly subhuman sooooooooo

big black turnout
Jan 13, 2009



Fallen Rib
what do people think about worker owned cooperatives? in times of declining union membership and even a deep, if unreasonable, resentment and distrust of unions, some other form of worker organization seems necessary, imo. i think worker owned businesses might be able to fill that gap, particularly if some kind of mechanism for helping them get started could be created

Dave Concepcion
Mar 19, 2012

Oberleutnant posted:

um im a communist who thinks fatties are literlaly subhuman sooooooooo

hmmm if we can also get rid of that gay reverence for islam that seems to be all the rage these days I think we might be on to something

big black turnout
Jan 13, 2009



Fallen Rib

Dave Concepcion posted:

hmmm if we can also get rid of that gay reverence for islam that seems to be all the rage these days I think we might be on to something

done.

Dave Concepcion
Mar 19, 2012
ok cool but I must be allowed to keep my $10000 worth of vintage wrist watches

skeletonotherkin
Sep 26, 2014

Dave Concepcion posted:

contemporary socialism/communism is hosed forever since they've made it practically mandatory to embrace all kinds of retarded poo poo like fat acceptance. I want my socialists handsome and chiseled like the ones from soviet propaganda posters, if what you have to offer is that loving maoist anime genderqueer human being that keeps popping up everywhere, I'd rather throw in my lot with citibank and watch the world burn

Communism needs another Stalin.

Dave Concepcion
Mar 19, 2012

skeletonotherkin posted:

Communism needs another Stalin.

preferably (a lot) taller and thinner

Butt Wizard
Nov 3, 2005

It was a pornography store. I was buying pornography.

BIG BOY EXPO 2K posted:

what do people think about worker owned cooperatives? in times of declining union membership and even a deep, if unreasonable, resentment and distrust of unions, some other form of worker organization seems necessary, imo. i think worker owned businesses might be able to fill that gap, particularly if some kind of mechanism for helping them get started could be created

is there a successful worker owned cooperative that's able to compete without fortress tariffs or provide goods for export without massive subsidies?

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FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

Identity politics are counter-revolutionary.

skeletonotherkin posted:

I'm socially liberal and fiscally exploitive.

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