this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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Comradeship // Freechat

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I know, it's not exactly the best way to measure where you stand politically but I'm just curious what your results are.

I score far left on the economical scale (almost hitting the edge) and about two squares from the center into the authoritarian quarter.

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[–] voight@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 39 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's literally a propaganda tool to get people to think their political interests are aligned to libertarian ideology.

[–] BrownMinusBlue@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, a friend told me about it and I decided to do the test myself..... Anyways, it said I was a libertarian. I've never been so offended in my life.

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 10 points 9 months ago

The insult is from an ideological magic 8 ball, but it still hurts lol

[–] voight@hexbear.net 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It's unfortunately almost a thing if you wanted to be generous ancaptain but of course he's mainly showing libertarianism rly is nothing more than an ideological weapon of US financial imperialism when implemented abroad

[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 33 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] Swinging6917@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 9 months ago

I like that one :)

[–] Oppo@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 9 months ago

reported for liberalism

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

This is my favourite one:

Usually i think i'm in support for Arcological Garden City State League or Nuclear Powered Platonic Republic, but in the current dangerous times when Neo-Hyborian Anarcho-Barbarism gain more and more followers i tend to look favourably at the Marxist-Cesarist Proletarian Imperium.

And this answer is slightly more serious than the original compass is.

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 9 months ago

most accurate political compass

[–] novibe@lemmy.ml 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Am I ok if I’m either Inhuman Shamanic Xenofeminism or Star Peoples Interplanetary Piracy? I just really like Dune.

But I wouldn’t mind to return to monkey and go Post Scarcity Ape Devolution… those fruits do look tasty.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I just really like Dune.

It's greatest work of sci-fi ever imo, but setting is a horrible dystopia, starting from castrating progress out of humanity and then followed by 10000 years of caste system slavery and even worse things in subsequent millenia.

[–] novibe@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, but it’s a warning right? Like all good sci-fi. How capitalism would devolve into feudalism. Eerily similar to what Yanis Varoufakis talks about nowadays.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I don't think Herbert meant capitalism in particular, thing that is constantly hammered is more of generic "be wary of tyrants, prophets, empires, theocracies, shady sects" and so on.

I want to point on something that is marginal in first book, but is a foundation of entire setting and gets back to be relevant in books 4-6, that is how Butlerian Jihad completely fucked up entire humanity by throwing away technological progress, not only more or less dangerous AI (depend on version, Brian Dune have just boring skynet rebellion but Frank early mentions and Dune encyclopedia suggest something rather akin of internal humanity struggle where the bad guys won), but all progress and thus damning humanity to eat its own ass in enternal cycle of feudal atrocities (it's also undialectical as fuck so from here i know Herbert wasn't a communist), while still being entirely depend on magic technology and magic drug.

[–] lemat_87@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A friend of mine said that only the book 1 was really good, 2 was so so, and the remaining were waste of time (this may be extremely subjective). I had read book 1, do you recommend to read 2-6?

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It’s greatest work of sci-fi ever imo

I can repeat this as many times as needed. Book 1 isn't even the best of original 6, 4th is the one. 5 and 6 are considerably weaker though.

[–] lemat_87@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 9 months ago

All right, I keep reading. BTW -- I finished volume one of «Selected works» of Marx and Engels, which you have recommended to me, thanks!

[–] novibe@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I do love how the foundations of the story are “hidden” in some ways, mysterious even to the most informed characters in the series. But yeah, I agree in all, specially that Herbert was not a communist. He was an anarchist, likely an individualist, but still he was a pretty good sci-fi writer lmao

Still, I do feel the criticisms of capitalism are quite clear. The CHOAM, how the emperor rules through it… it’s quite on the nose imo.

In a way it’s quite Leninist. Capital turns monopolistic, and then turns imperialistic. It just became REAL Imperial y’know.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Except CHOAM is not why Emperor rule. In fact, Emperor do not really rule, not more than the Holy Roman Emperors ruled. Dune Empire system was interlocking system of mutual dependences:

  1. Landsraad hold the majority of people and means of production, but is disunited as only loose organisation of feudal lords can be. They are also the most independent, since overwhelming most of empire is self-sufficient feudal planets.
  2. Emperor have the biggest army and have shares in trade but do not hold any means of production, his real function is being figurehead at the top and (more real) keeping the nobles from disrupting the system as enforcer of the Great Convention.
  3. Spacing Guild control space travel, and keep interplanetary wars from happening, but nothing else (especially not spice) and therefore despite being most outright powerful faction, is also the one most interested in keeping status quo.
  4. CHOAM looks like capitalist, but it's at most protocapitalist, it's what Marx described as merchant capital, and it is form that exist in feudalism. More similar to late medieval Italian merchant houses than to any modern corporation. Note that financial capital is controlled by Guild in the setting, yet another fitting sign of protocapitalist formation. Again, when the most of empire is primitive feudal planets, and commodity production is not primary form of production, CHOAM cannot have deciding power, it can bring in luxuries at best.
  5. Bene Gesserit, Bene Tleilax, Suk Academy, Mentat School, Ginaz School (and in reality also Ix) are organisations with significant influence but not a big players, even though Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax have huge ambitions.

All that was puposefully set up in the Great Convention. Overall it's a FEUDAL system, not capitalist.

[–] novibe@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I do agree. But it doesn’t feel like it’s a pre-capitalist feudal system, or a proto-capitalist one. It feels more like a post-capitalist feudal system. The structures of capitalism are there, but shifted in a way to favour the rentier class much more, to the point they became new feudal lords. Very similar to what is happening right now.

Sure, commodity production is not the center of the economy, it’s rent seeking. But still the rulers are descendants of a hyper capitalist class that came to own everything and with hyper-monopoly came rent seeking. I would argue something like the Spacing Guild to be an evolution of what Amazon could become if left unchecked to completely monopolize “the internet” and logistics.

It feels more like a post-capitalist feudal system

We don't have any indication of pre-jihad times in Frank works. Though both Brian version and Dune Encyclopedia point on kind of post-scarcity economy with huge role of AI. Brian also inserts the periods of Titan oligarchy and then Synchronised Worlds and Noble League between that and the Jihad. None of those were capitalist. So it wouldn't be correct to call this "post capitalist", rather the Empire was either the direct consequence of fall of the post-scarcity civilisation or direct continuation of Noble League (which was itself consequence of fall of the previous civilisation).

But still the rulers are descendants of a hyper capitalist class that came to own everything and with hyper-monopoly came rent seeking

Again, no info from Frank except Houses Corrino, Atreides and Harkonnen being directly descended from victors of Jihad - so not looking like the hypercapitalist but more like warlords. In Brian version empire aristocracy directly come from the Butlerian warlords that tore down whatever was before (look above) and League aristocracy. Only huge capitalist venture was VenKee corporation which was direct predecessor of Spacing Guild, but the Guild came to life as direct result of VenKee being smashed and transformed from a capitalist venture into the literal Guild.

I would argue something like the Spacing Guild to be an evolution of what Amazon could become if left unchecked to completely monopolize “the internet” and logistics.

Other way. Sure, that Amazon (VenKee) did aimed at domination over the empire but lost and was forcibly cut down to become Guild in nearly medieval sense of the word. Also had Norma Cenva as its real head who predicted a lot of future and was one of proponents of the new deal that is the Great Convention.

[–] voight@hexbear.net 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Op asked "What's your political compass?" so i posted that one which is slightly more real and useful than the normal polcomp.

Well ok, i guess there's also this one:

[–] voight@hexbear.net 7 points 9 months ago

Go back to war torn vs utopian 🗣️😡

[–] lemat_87@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 9 months ago

Most accurate I've seen so far :)

[–] lil_tank@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 9 months ago

I'm center

On the scale between ultraleftism and opportunism

[–] CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 9 months ago

I'm at the bottom left of the trve political cumpiss.

[–] Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Any test that truly intends to capture the full range of possibilities needs more dimensions.

Something like https://8values.github.io/ maybe could be taken with a degree of seriousness if you’re actually wondering what label might fit

Even that model isn’t complete — instead of treating Marxism and liberalism as ideologies, it should treat them as paradigms and try to determine whether you fit into realism, liberalism, constructivism, Marxism, or some degree of synthesis of these

[–] blakeus12@hexbear.net 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

1000001736

oh no oh god oh no im a lib

[–] Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Lol. The ideology matching is a bit incomplete (I think democratic socialists aren’t even on there) — but it does at least admit to that

[–] Imnecomrade@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I got the same when I took it, lol.

[–] starkillerfish@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There’s also a version of 8 values but for leftists https://leftvalues.github.io/ !

Huh i was pretty sceptical seeing some of the questions were wrongly or ambigiously formulated, but i actually got Marxism-Leninism as result which makes it the best of such tests ever.

[–] Imnecomrade@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

My results

To be honest, I answered often in the middle, such as for nationalist questions, which I would disagree with if it is considering imperialist countries, but agree with if it is considering colonized countries. A lot of my answers depended on context, and I would vote either way depending on the situation, consequences, and alternatives.

[–] juchebot88@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 9 months ago

I got "Marxist-Leninist:"

  • Very revolutionary
  • Very scientific
  • Very centralist
  • Neutral on international vs. national, leaning more international
  • Very productivist (yay Deng!)
  • Neutral on conservative vs. progressive (not sure what that was about -- maybe because I was in the middle on abortion, to allow for Stalin and modern Nicaragua?)

I'd certainly call myself a Marxist-Leninist, but there are some weird things about this quiz.

[–] ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'm perfectly in the centre, but the two extremes of my compass are totalitarian collectivism and egoist individualism. There is no second axis.

[–] voight@hexbear.net 8 points 9 months ago

You need to read volume 3 of Capital, which covers rents and debts more thoroughly, then read The Dialectics of Dependency by Ruy Mauro Marini

[–] voight@hexbear.net 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (11 children)

centrist

Where on this axis is thinking that someone saying London buoys up the GDP of the rest of the country is saying it's a good thing? When I'm also saying the rest is poorer than the deep south 🇺🇸🍔🦅🗽?

GDP is a heavily inflated (by rents and debts and financial assets and shit like that) statistic, when I say London is a financial capital like NYC, Chicago, LA, and such, I am also talking about incredibly poverty stricken regions with high rents (for living). London has very high rent coming in internationally too. Also there are other classic dynamics like rural-urban migration for work which are very shitty for people idk read Wallerstein bruv. m8

It's like you can't disagree with anyone on here without them trying to disagree with everything you say & trying to categorically denounce your motivation for posting (being silly while burning Israel to the ground) 🌞

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[–] Rasm635u@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 9 months ago
[–] KnutenHand@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] TankieReplyBot@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 9 months ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

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