like a skeleton key.

only-conservative-here:

“Socialism wasn’t Marx’s ‘system’.”

And neither is capitalism Hayek, Schlafly, Paul, Friedman, Rand, etc.’s system. That’s my point. They were all proponents of that system. Separation-by-mitosis implied that since those people did not create capitalism, reading their books is not a requirement to understand the system (which I agree with). Since socialism did not originate with Marx, then not reading its greatest proponent does not say whether or not you can criticize it.

You dense mother fucker.

Marx was not a theorist of socialism, in that he did not theorize how a socialist society would function. I didn’t make that post to defend socialism, I made that post to point out that if you’ve never read Marx, you will not understand his critique of capitalism.

“Marxism is an analysis of capitalism,”

Along with a proposal of what it should be replaced with: a Communist state.

Marxism is first and foremost an analysis and critique of capitalism. Marx did not define how socialism or communism would function in practice, and did not make a habit out of predicting what a communist society would look like, outside of a few statements regarding transition periods and vague sentiments concerning free association of producers.

“and I made this post originally to point out that if you haven’t read Marx, you will not have even a basic understanding of his arguments regarding capitalism (the law of value, in particular).”

Well, what if someone has read and understood Marx, and yet is still a proponent of capitalism?

You probably never read a thing by Marx outside of the Manifesto, which is not enough to have any genuine understanding of Marxism. But I’m not in the mood to debate what you have or haven’t read, and I don’t feel like concocting a quiz to test your knowledge of Marxism.

“When anti-capitalists argue against capitalism, they’re not arguing against the idea of Hayek and Rand specifically, but the way the system actually operates.”

Then you should argue for better capitalism, not for communism.

And this is why I believe you’ve never read a thing by Marx outside of the manifesto. You can not have capitalism without exploitation. You can not have capitalism without alienation.

“[w]e don’t have to read Hayek or Rand to understand capitalism, because capitalism is not a philosophical system like Marxism.”

It is an economic philosophy, therefore it is a philosophical system.

Hayek and Rand’s conception of capitalism do not exist anywhere in the world, and have never existed anywhere in the world. In that sense, they certainly do form part of an ideology.

(via amodernmanifesto)

Posted December 3, 2012 at 4:41pm in reblog | 103 notes

Text Post

Leo Furnari (LFurnari)

predditors:

19 year old White Male

Clinton Township, Michigan

studying at Central Michigan University

stalks women on campus

his username is his first initial and last name

Reddit.com/user/LFurnari

His submission to reddit is a voyeur shot of another student:

Writes about which school he goes to:

His twitter:

His facebook:

(via iggyjack)

Posted October 21, 2012 at 10:28pm in predditors reblog | 173 notes

Text Post

chongthenomad:

“all rap sucks-“

“rap is the worst genre of mus-“

“rap isn’t real musi-“

“they’re just talking with a beat-“

(via iggyjack)

Posted October 6, 2012 at 9:46pm in reblog | 2,071 notes

Photo Post

expose-the-light:

Ten things you may not know about the Moon

1. The Moon formed out of the Earth

Scientists now think that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized object crashed into our planet about 4.5 billion years ago. The collision was so large that a huge spray of material was ejected into space. The orbiting ring of debris gathered itself into a sphere, and formed the Moon. How do we know that this is how the Moon probably formed? The Moon seems to be much less dense than the Earth and lacks a lot of iron in its core. Scientists think that the Moon is made up of the upper crust material, which has mostly lower density, than the composition of the Earth.

2. The Moon only shows one face to the Earth

Although the Moon used to rotate in the sky compared to our point of view, it has been slowing down billions of years. And at some point in the distant past it just stopped turning from our perspective. The Earth’s gravity holds the Moon in orbit, but it pulls differently at various parts of the Moon. Over a long period, gravity slowed down the Moon’s rotation so that it finally stopped, and always displayed one face to the Earth. A similar situation has happened with most of the large moons in the Solar System. In fact, in the case of Pluto and Charon, but objects are tidally locked to each other, so they present only one face to the other.

3. The Moon is slowly drifting away

Although the orbit of the Moon seems nice and stable, our only natural satellite is actually drifting away from us at a rate of 4 centimeters a year. This is happening because of the conservation of momentum in the orbit of the Earth. In about 50 billion years from now, the Moon will stop moving away from us. It will settle into a stable orbit, taking about 47 days to go around the Earth (it takes 27.3 days today). At that point, the Earth and the Moon will be tidally locked to each other. It will look like the Moon is always in the same spot in the sky. Of course, the Sun is expected to consume the Earth in about 5 billion years, so this event may not happen.

4. The Moon looks the same size as the Sun

This is an amazing coincidence. From our perspective here on Earth, but the Moon and the Sun look approximately the same size in the sky. Of course, the Sun is much much bigger than the Moon. The Sun happens to be 400 times larger than the Moon, but it’s also 400 times further away. This wasn’t always the case. Billions of years ago, the Moon was much closer than the Sun, and would have looked larger in the sky. And the Moon is moving away from us, so in the distant future, the Moon will look much smaller than the Sun.

5. The Moon causes most of the tides… but not all

You might know that the tides on Earth are caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon. But it’s not the only thing pulling at the Earth’s water, the Sun is helping out too. This is why we get very high and low tides from time to time. When the gravity of the Moon and the Sun line up, we get the biggest and smallest tides. Did you know that the Moon is also pulling at the crust of the Earth causing it to bulge up? You actually move a few meters every time the Moon is overhead, but you just don’t notice.

6. Gravity on the Moon is only 17% of the Earth

Want an easy way to lose some weight? Take a trip to the Moon and stand on its surface. Since the pull of gravity on the Moon is only 17% the pull of gravity on the Earth, you’ll feel much lighter. Just imagine, if you weighed 100 kg on the Earth, you would feel like you only weighed 17 kg on Earth. You would be able to jump 6 times further and carry objects 6 times as heavy. In fact, you had wings attached to your arms, you could even fly around inside a dome on the Moon under just your own muscle power.

7. The official name for the Moon is… the Moon

I know it’s kind of confusing, but the only real name for the Earth’s Moon is “the Moon”. When the Moon was given its name, astronomers didn’t know that there were moons orbiting other planets. And so they just called it the Moon. Now that we know there are other moons, it all comes down to the capitalization. The Earth’s moon is referred as “the Moon”, with a capital “M”. Other moons are given a lowercase “m” to show the difference.

8. The Moon is the 5th largest natural satellite in the Solar System

You might think that the Moon is the largest satellite in the Solar System. I mean look at it, it’s huge! But there are actually larger moons in the Solar System. The largest moon is Jupiter’s Ganymede (5,262 km), followed by Saturn’s Titan, Jupiter’s Callisto, Jupiter’s Io, and finally, the Earth’s Moon with a mean diameter of 3475 km.

9. Only 12 people have ever stepped onto the surface of the Moon

Only a tiny group of astronauts have ever set foot on the surface of the Moon. These were the astronauts on board the Apollo missions going from 1969 to 1972. The first person to ever walk on the Moon was Neil Armstrong. And the last person on the Moon was Gene Cernan, who followed his partner Jack Schmitt into the lunar lander on December 14, 1972.

10. And we’re going back to the Moon

NASA has been given the mission to return humans to the Moon, and set up a permanent research station. At the time of this writing, astronauts are expected to set foot on the surface of the Moon again in 2019.

GIF by 40 Licks