Kynuck97

Wait isn't that the plan? My private line to our Chinese HQ has been blowing up with Xi Jinping repeating "Mobilize the pigs" ad nauseum.

I stand corrected - I must begin studying the spear.

They are disarming the proletariat because they know how hard we have all been studying the blade. The sword is the true worker's symbol of liberation. Only a multi-thousand-times folded blade can cleanly slice through the chains of oppression.

I only vote for candidates that I know will lose

Gary Johnson 2016

I think Redditors would be full mask-off if their usernames were anonymous like on 4chan. Not all that different, but Reddit feels more "Polite" than 4chan.

This will repeat yearly until Communism is achieved

Im gonna be reciting this shit from memory when the revolution finally comes to the imperial core lmfao

US right-wing politics has a real 4chan vibe to it these days, it's been weird to watch 4chan ideas and vernacular become mainstream

I appreciate the response - I understand what you are saying. I do want to clarify that I'm not trying to argue from an arbitrary moral/idpol perspective. In the article in the linked thread, they interviewed a person who is a part of the Navajo nation, who argues explicitly against the consumption of Mescaline for outsiders, synthetic or not.

“How would Christians feel if Jesus Christ was cloned?” asked Justin Jones, a Diné peyote practitioner and legal counsel for the Native American church of North America, a non-profit organization that advocates for more than 300,000 members. “And while the real Jesus is protected, people could do whatever they wanted to the clone.”

Creating synthetic mescaline in a lab or growing peyote in a greenhouse is a violation of natural law, and interrupts the unique symbiotic relationship with the plant. “What western scientists call mescaline is for us the essence of the medicine,” said Jones. “It is the soul of it and what makes it holy.”

If I am understanding you correctly - that would shift this from being a purely value-neutral form of appropriation, to being actively harmful and disrespectful.

Can you help me understand what you mean, or point me in the right direction? I'm not exactly a well-read Marxist and I'm not trying to hide it

According the the person interviewed in the article, it is the plant, and the chemical itself.

Creating synthetic mescaline in a lab or growing peyote in a greenhouse is a violation of natural law, and interrupts the unique symbiotic relationship with the plant. “What western scientists call mescaline is for us the essence of the medicine,” said Jones. “It is the soul of it and what makes it holy.”

There's definitely a branch of "Psychonauts" that want to engage in the whole ritual practice (See all these psychedelic retreats/therapies/ayauasca "experiences"), but it sounds like many of them don't want the chemical commodified at all either.

They don't have a right to the chemical structure of mescaline though. It's like saying Chinese tea growers have the right to bar western people from drinking energy drinks because they both contain caffeine.

My dude, what? We're talking about settlers appropriating the culture of indigenous Americans. I'm not versed in the history of the Chinese Tea trade, but it has historically been exported and shared. The key difference being "Exported and Shared". Willfully sharing parts of your culture with other people is not at all comparable to having it be appropriated by colonizers despite your express protests.

Would you stop taking Aspirin if Egyptian people said that you were appropriating their use of willow bark?

Willow trees grow worldwide, and people generally use the resources that are available to them. There is definitely a case to be made about the imperialist nature of western medicine, but that is a completely separate conversation from what we're talking about here.

They have a right to the rituals, images, and other unique elements of culture involving peyote. They do not have a right to the chemical structure itself.

Why are you so intent on determining what parts of their culture they have a right to and which parts they don't?

Yeah i re-read the article a few times and came to a similar conclusion. At the same time - if they have an issue with white colonizers using synthetic ~~Peyote~~ mescaline, is that not also worth consideration and empathy? It subverts the supply issue, but it feels to me (as a white colonizer) like approptiation of someone's culture, against the protest of the people who's culture is being appropriated.

Should we really be forcing onto any indigenous peoples our views of whats "fair"? There exist many alternatives to mescaline, and I think their desire to not have it commodified and shared should be respected.