Philosophy

There seems to be a trend of collective punishment becoming socially acceptable. Examples:

1. The relentless onslaught of AML/KYC banking laws, which punish everyone because criminals exist (and law enforcement has apparently lost competency in catching them).
2. Israel has the audacity to argue that recognising Palestinian state “rewards Hamas”. It’s factually true but they should be embarrassed to push the crazy idea that all Palestinians should be denied sovereign governance on the basis that some specific group would benefit symbolically.
3. Europe decided it’s okay to prohibit cash transactions above €10k on the basis that criminals use cash (neglecting that non-criminals need to use cash).
4. Some European nations decided it’s okay to prohibit cash operations with “basic” bank accounts (the only bank accounts that cannot discriminate against demographics of people).
5. Many suppliers of essential resources (water and energy) are discontinuing cash acceptance. Punishment may not be the intent; they likely want to employ fewer people. But collective punishment against non-criminal cash users is the effect and people are not challenging this new form of oppression.
6. Roughly 50% of US voters are happy to punish all undocumented people on the basis that some¹ of them have committed crimes. (¹Research shows the crime rate of US-born citizens is DOUBLE that of illegal immigrants. Although we also have to account for folks in the right-wing bubble not being well informed. It’s publicly endorsed collective punishment either way.)

Given the above, I have no doubt that collective punishment is widely considered acceptable. But my question is about the trend of it -- whether it has worsened in the past decade. It was probably a shit-show up to the 1970s, but likely improved after the 70s. Are we regressing?

This will be cross-posted to history forums to get an answer on trends and whether this has been studied. I was tempted to post to a human rights forum, but I was surprised to find that no human rights treaties cover collective punishment. So it’s apparently irrelevant to human rights.

“Fear without legitimacy and without love from the people becomes a countdown to rebellion and revolution.”

“To shield the oppressed and haunt the oppressors - that is the true shape of leadership.”

I recently participated in a discussion with another user of this instance and even though itself didn't lead anywhere, I personally think that I put enough effort in the comments trying to illustrate the differences between philosophies that it validates it's own post about it.

Not trying to harass anyone or anything of the kind, just hope that those comments can help someone willing to engage with them to have a better understanding of Dialectical Materialism.

I don't agree with everything he says, although his philosophical takes, charisma, vast knowledge and comedic narratives, really cracks me up. Worth a listen.

Rephrased, will dialectics always exist?

Have fun, because I sure don't.

edit: if it helps your thinking process a bit, consider this:

• Dialectics explains the process of contradictions. So, does dialectics go through its own contradictions?
• If so, that means dialectics has a process of its own and describes its own process as well. It's a bit like the "does a set of all sets contain itself" question.
• But if the laws of dialectics are eternal and dialectics does not go through its own process and contradictions, then it would be eternal. Is that possible though?
• And finally of course what are the implications of all of that?

I kinda like this explanation of things.

Your thoughts?

He's got a video on Marxism that I haven't checked out yet, though I'm afraid to watch it.

Any Greek philosophy worth reading?

I am reading the Anti-Dühring by Engels, in it he proves the false arguments of the person who the book is named after. Engels goes from a varied array of subjects from philosophy, to biology, chemistry, physics, and so on.

At some point, Engels, while correcting Dühring, speaks about the theories of the beginning of existence and points out that Dühring is a supporter of creationism, e.i.: that there was a point where there was only nothing (absolute rest) and that out of this nothing, something came to be (motion). The only logical conclusion to an outlook like the one proposed is the existence of a God, which Düring rejects.

My question would be as following, what is the Marxist take on this, because if we assume the previous mentioned, we need to either accept the existence of God, or to believe there is some sort of unknown scientific law that allows the creation of motion out of absolute rest. Both seem very unlikely.

A third option is that time and matter have always existed since infinity, and that they will keep on existing until infinity. Which is the option that makes the most sense from the point of view of dialectical materialism.

From my understanding, though, neither of these three theories can be understood as "bad infinities" (in the Hegelian jargon), since they do not represent a contradiction in itself.

Do we have scientific proof that further discredits any of these three possibilities?

Every other person who speaks on philosophy always recommends stoicism, Buddhism, and reference Greek or Roman philosophers. Any ML philosophy or philosophy from social countries? I would love to look into it.

Watching rn; very interesting.