The Conversation is probably my favorite as well, but I always enjoyed Enemy of the State (1998) a lot. It has the same paranoid vibes as some of his work in the 70s, but with the subtlety replaced with sensational action. He was great in that film as a retired super spook, and his chemistry with Will Smith really elevated it.
It's a lot easier to argue against Marx than against Marxism, just as it's a lot easier to argue against Darwin than evolution. Marxism as a school of thought has evolved quite a bit since Marx, who any non-crank would admit was wrong about a host of things.
Marxism is largely descriptive, and so many people claim that it cannot be falsified. But there are ways you could falsify Marxism:
- Capitalism could mediate class conflict out of existence
- Capitalism could grow indefinitely without producing business crises
- Wages across the world could become roughly equal in terms of purchasing power, regardless of the country, without an economic crisis.
Now, these would have to happen in the actually existing world, and as such I can see the resistance to labeling them as falsifiable. So how would you falsify orthodox economics?
Marx discusses how skill (and factors like machinery, etc) factors into value in Capital vol 1. The idea isn't that any labor on any endeavor creates value at a constant rate across all individuals and all time.
Marx has some concept of "socially necessary" labor, but it doesn't really make sense because it wants to treat skill as some kind of simple multiplier as if we can assume that a modern doctor's labor is some simple multiple of a random medieval peasant's labor in diagnosing an illness, which is just a silly and oversimplified model.
Honestly it reminds me of like Marx's non-rigorous "eh whatever" approach to dividing by zero in his mathematical work. While one can define division by zero in non-standard analysis, that involves some actual rigor in how your treat it according to your definitions, not just shrugging your shoulders and doing it.
What you're getting at vis-a-vis highly skilled labor is known in Marxist economics as the labor reduction problem, and it's complicated (enough so that I wouldn't do it justice trying to elaborate the approaches in the time I have to respond). Marx died with it unsolved and it's a matter of discussion to this day. But you're conflating that problem with the concept of socially necessary labor, which is different and actually addresses the problem you posed (in Capital Vol 1, in the difficult early chapters). In order to produce value, the labor must be socially necessary, and the labor of any number of unskilled workers towards a highly complex problem (eg, treating a rare cancer) would not be socially necessary. It doesn't even have to be that complex. I don't have the skills necessary to make a wedding cake, and any attempt I make to do so would be so inept that it wouldn't be socially necessary labor.
Can't speak to the division by zero, but it doesn't come up in any of Marx important work. His mathematical manuscripts don't have any significant relationship to his work on political economy.
I mean, economics is a mathematical profession. It's hard for me to take his storytelling about things like the freedom of hunter-gatherers and such seriously when I know he wasn't rigorous in the things that are easier to check. Never mind the, err, implementation problems in basically every attempted revolution until somewhere around the point where the Nordic states found a way to subsidize it with resource extraction and found a voluntary version.
It strikes me as incurious to dismiss an entire field of thought because there were errors in a mathematical manuscript, especially when you clearly don't understand the fundamental concepts (I don't mean this as a dig. You just haven't learned them.). Marxism isn't the writings of a long dead guy in England in 1860. It's a living, breathing school of thought that's evolved significantly since then. What you're doing is akin to finding an error in Smith or Ricardo's [edit: unpublished manuscripts, not completed work] work (of which there were many) and using those errors to dismiss all of orthodox economics.
The revolutionary approaches have not succeeded thus far, granted. There is a branch of Marxism about revolution, but what we're talking about here is a description of capitalism. Marxist revolutionary activities have nothing to do with how potent that analysis is.
There's no such thing as neutral and you shouldn't treat any journalists as such. I don't know if their viewpoint is relevant here though; the question is about their ability to verify a factual assertion.
The secret here is they only investigate the things that support their narrative. In this article they actually explicitly stated they're looking to cover a specific list of negative things associated with the industry. They would not, for example, publish an article about how much lower our standard of living would be without the industry. Or to attempt to weigh the positives adjust the negatives of the industry.
So you can always publish "gold standard" journalism and yet still present a distorted version of the truth.
So you can get information from multiple well researched sources. This is one of them. Don't expect anyone to do all the work.
"You're not publishing full investigative journalism articles on absolutely everything." is not a valid criticism of your article, or a reasonable criticism of the publisher.
Yes, this type of criticism is baffling and, frankly, a bit morally outrageous.
ProPublica can't be expected to do all the work of uncovering all sides of the truth. They already do the hardest work: uncovering what the powerful would rather that we not know. They do enough; what are the rest of us doing?
I would agree that it's historically been uncommon for the media to give balanced perspective on civilizational progress, but some good sources for this have emerged in recent years. One of my favorites is Works in Progress magazine: https://worksinprogress.co/
I mean in that case there is nobody engaged in journalism! You choose what you cover, and who you interview, and how much you spend hemming on a source's claims, etc etc etc.
It's a lot easier to think about journalism as the result of human output that is indeed biased towards certain ideas, and to then read from various things, look into things yourself, or reading things from outlets that you believe have your interests at heart.
Expecting one group to collect all the info and present a pro/con list is gonna be very hard, but if you just check out a handful of outfit's coverage on something you might get a good enough picture to apply some judgement.
The motte: nobody is perfectly neutral, so no journalism can be perfectly objective. (true)
The bailey: it is normal and reasonable for journalists to present a biased narrative without even attempting to find or mention relevant information that would contradict it. (false)
Objectivity is an ideal that, while impossible to perfectly achieve, can certainly be done better or worse, and is important for journalists to think about if they want the trust of the public.
I only really see this as a relevant objection if the "omitted" information is such that it distorts what is actually presented. Is that the accusation? Or are they "biased" because they didn't publish this next to a counterpoint about how wonderful internal combustion engines are?
Emotional manipulation by only presenting a view which aligns with your desired policy outcomes — but not the contrast, eg that ICEs enable modern farming — is classic propaganda technique.
I'd add manipulation by picking phrasing you want to though... Like "ICEs enable modern farming". Machines/vehicles are one of the things that enable modern farming, it's ICE that's currently the most common power source for them - but ICE is just one implementation of it and can be replaced.
Why does an investigative reporter need to tell me that fossil fuels can be used to operate a tractor? We knew that already. No investigation is required.
the actual secret is that this misguided line of reasoning is unfortunately abused by those who wish to suppress arbitrary journalism they dislike, or the concept of professional journalism in general, because as you say, such criticism would mean journalism doesn't actually exist
I mean that's just plain false. Think of how much time any one meaty investigative report takes; nobody has the time or resources to then turn around and carefully make sure they do some sort of counterbalancing expose that's somehow pro-industry (and what's the point of an expose? They employ many PR people for that purpose anyway).
You don't need to take their comment seriously... After all they didn't make the counterargument and therefore it's a overly biased point and thus not useful in any way.
That's why as an individual you're supposed to get your news from multiple high quality sources, each with their own biases and slants, and then you make your own conclusion. I realize most people only want to read news that supports their already held beliefs though.
> You’re not engaged in journalism if you only investigate and present a narrative which aligns with your policy preferences.
where did you hear this silly rule? It sounds like something a child would make up when they don't want to hear something
>they don’t overtly lie or fabricate data to support their case... that’s true of many propaganda outfits.
another thing which is true of "many" propaganda outlets is they don't literally give you cancer, and that is an observation exactly as discerning as yours, because they are both also true of "many" truthful media outlets
if you have an issue with the specific article, or the facts alleged within, that's one thing, but the facts not reflecting well on your viewpoint and you being upset they aren't reporting other things which would make you feel better, is not a criticism of them
I feel that the "pro-"extractive industry side of things has so much obvious monetary incentive behind it that it isn't really necessary to worry about independent reporters not adequately presenting it.
The whole article is about what would happen without the California oil industry: it would cost the people 21.5 billion dollars to clean up the industrial operations of that industry.
They wouldn’t in the case of California oil production because it’s long past peak and would have little impact if it went poof.
In general, these companies have made enough money that they are insulated from any meaningful punitive action. “Polluting Oil Well 32668 of Los Angeles, LLC” will go bankrupt if sued and disappear once it becomes untenable.
That’s no secret, and being the HN Lorax for oil extraction is both bizarre and a futile effort - the die is cast, and taxpayers will be stuck with the bill.
Not the US, but I gained some insights into the legal treatment of industrial polution in Germany after working at two chemical companies. Over simplified, the last one to turn the lights off in a certain industrial site is stuck with the bill of cleaning up the mess. Decades upon decades worth of mess. Those sites are, by now, multi user sights, it is the users who are responsible for clean-up and costs, not the site owning entity.
The result is, some of the sites are kept at minimum operations just to avoid the tremendous shut-down costs.
Avoiding those costs by spining the operations off doesn't really work. The new entity would have to take the risk of shut-down costs, if it is clear those cannot be covered from the get go, it is the original entity that is in the hook. So, worst case, e.g. 3M wpupd have to declare bancruptcy. One common work around is to push those outdated operations down to other cheap skate companies, e.g. from Asia, who can buy them, including clean-up liabilities, for a symbolic price. Then they extract whatever value is left, before reselling it again. As long the overall site, or rather park, is operational this works. Which is bad for the last operator left, he risks being stuck with the bill.
By the way, those costs for clean up are accounted for as potential liabilies in the balance sheets of operating companies. Just putting everything in seperate legal entity, and letting that one go bankcrupt, doesn't really work. Which is a good thing, IMHO.
I’m sure that’s the case, but wouldn’t the courts be able to seize the relevant land in that case, too? Or pass some special blanket law stating any site that requires the government pay for clean up reverts to public (government) ownership?
At least in that case the government gets a lot of land back that can be sold for solar farms or, in higher density areas like Los Angeles, developed into higher uses like housing+parks?
Skipping oil and going to power generation, you have the same thing. Spin off the power generator, leave it with no money, the land has negative value, go bankrupt. This has happened in Oxnard for example, and the city is trying to not have it happen again (good luck).
One may count and add things correctly, but one may count things that are not connected or double count items. That's the kind of thing people fudge when trying to convince people one way or another. They usually don't outright make things up.
That's why you should be reading outlets for opposing sides, to get the best arguments for each side.
But if one side doesn't bother to mount a defense or do their own individual research, and resorts only to dismissing the other side based on the fact that it's "the other side", they aren't doing themselves any favors.
Reading both sides is itself a bit of a fallacy. Most problems don't fit neatly into two 'sides'. For example, take gun control -- typically associated with the liberal wing of the democratic party, and opposed by most of the republican party. The leftist wing of American politics, however, is often opposed to gun control. Organizations like the Socialist Rifle Association and John Brown Gun Club and Pink Pistols.
In the case of environmental review, there's also a multitude of different perspectives with different objectives. From indigenous groups whose land was (typically) stolen, to anti-oil activists, to pro-business democrats (like Biden/Clinton) who want to keep profits rolling at the expense of pristine wildlands, to the various concerns of the right. I know plenty of republican folks who are religiously compelled to take care of the earth and oppose oil drilling. I know plenty of republicans who believe that anthropogenic climate change is "impossible".
Quite frankly, it's not wrong to read a few viewpoints, or read only the viewpoints you agree with and just acknowledge there are other viewpoints. Just don't get lost in believing your viewpoint is the only reasoned one.
> In his introduction to an edition of Metamorphosis, the novelist Adam Thirlwell suggests that we have misunderstood Kafka much as Magarshack said we had misunderstood Chekhov, and that Kafka is much more playful than we have hitherto given him credit for.
When I was 17, I read Kafka for the first time and was put off by what I saw as the dour and oppressive atmosphere. I had the same insight as Thirlwell when I reread him ~10 years later: Kafka's works have a sort of deadpan and absurdist humor to them and shouldn't be treated as seriously as they often are. I wonder how much of that humor is lost in translation.
There's something to this. When I read The Trial, I was struck by the sheer absurdity of it all. Josef is never charged with a crime, is never coerced into any action, yet at every step remains a willing participant in his own punishment. Up to his own death. It's as if his real crime was not refusing to go along with the farce.
Kafka's friend, Max Brod, talked of how Kafka found humour in his dark works - especially the chilling "The Trial", which he thought a hoot, laughing so hard while reading the first chapter aloud, that he repeatedly had to stop to collect himself.
> Kafka's works have a sort of deadpan and absurdist humor to them and shouldn't be treated as seriously as they often are.
Kafka worked as some kind of minor bureaucrat in the Hapsburg government, and he is making fun of big bureaucracy. I always like to point out when people say something is Kafkaesque, as in "nightmarishly complicated", he himself was inspired by how absurd government bureaucracy is.
Without appropriate regulations you're just building more AirBNBs.
A little less flippantly, just adopting this YIMBY line without thinking through regulating the market to ensure houses are for human habitation will not address the underlying issues. It will just line the pockets of real estate developers.
Someone help me understand why I should care more about the Chinese government having my data than my own. My own government actually has power over me.
You probably should not care about it. The only real threat that China poses to people who live in the West is nuclear war, but that is already deterred by mutually assured destruction and in any case the Chinese government having your social media data does not make it any more likely that they are going to start a nuclear war. China's government is a threat to the people who live in the areas that it controls. Since I live in an area that the US government controls, the US government having my data is almost certainly a bigger danger to me than China having it, although to be fair the US government having my data probably is not a very big danger to me either. I find the NSA's activities to be more insulting than actually frightening.
The value of the data can be as simple as knowing what negative messages/videos you'll continually watch and how those videos, in part, impact larger swaths of the population. And with data sharing between apps and devices, you could likely track actions across much of the web to the influence of these videos.
It's in China's interest, and others, to destabilize the populations of it's enemies. Traditionally this could be through propaganda, but a potentially more powerful force could be to make the population depressed, angry, confused, and distracted. This impacts the real world in your day to day, the communities you live in, and the quality/intentions of elected officials.
Now this could easily be accomplished even with the best intentions from the company creating the software. So how nefarious or not this actually is, or how much manipulation the Chinese government is applying here is totally debatable.
I'm not arguing for one side of that or the other. My point is data is super powerful, is often tied to apps and devices you don't realize, and can be used to motivate action at large scale, so the holder of the data really does matter.
That said, US companies and others outside China also have tons of data and use it for their own profit and potentially to spread propaganda and destabilizing information. In the US, however, the chance of malintent being the driving force is less probable and, as far as I can see, tend more to be influential actors or groups. In these cases, the software company and regulators are more likely to to moderate or suppress this because it can be bad for business. When it's a geopolitical foe who is or simply can cause issues this way, the intentions and lack of regulation are far more problematic.
Do you think that a country as large as China has agents in your country? If not, then continue to live a blissful life, if so, then how do you think those agents, or agents of any large country, accomplish tasks in other countries?
Perhaps you don't have access to anything they want, but perhaps you're a stepping stone to something they do want.
And perhaps you are not today, and of course perhaps all the children in your country are not today, but one day, some of them will be. Some of them will even grow up to be Senators, CEOs, etc. Perhaps, some of those children today, have parents whom China does want to influence.
>The source is endless direct and to the point statements in Chinese by the leaders of China.
Would you be so kind as to point to a link where such "endless" statements are recorded "direct and to the point"? Primary sources are fine. I don't need translators.
Making egregious claims while providing zero proof whatsoever is a sign that the only thing you are serious about is manufacturing consent.
To project nationalist rhetoric externally as the means to maintain domestic political legitimacy, just like what the U.S. is doing.
I am not affiliated with any sort of decision-making body of the Chinese government so what do I know? It's all just speculation.
So, can you kindly provide a source that proves your claims about the Chinese government's stated goals against the U.S.? Just one source, one. It must not be very difficult to retrieve just one source material to back up claims of the existence of this grand death cult campaign propeled by the Chinese government, is it?
I don’t really care for message board arguments with people who aren’t curious and are trying to score points by restating their not particularly researched position. If you’re intellectually curious about this topic you now have an entry point.
I asked for primary sources, not the distilled excerpts of some rando's Substack grift which I am absolutely not going to pay for.
>people who aren’t curious
I am literally asking for your sources because I am curious how you arrived at those conclusions, yet you refuse to provide them.
>trying to score points by restating their not particularly researched position
Those are some ironic words coming from someone whose best supporting proof to their egregious claim is one single person's paywalled blog as a secondary source. If you are anywhere remotely close to being intellectually curious as you pretend to be, perhaps providing actual sources will be a good start.
Setting aside the far more malevolent impact of American power, China has no way to use my data to oppress me. The US does, and routinely uses social media data against its own citizens and people abroad.
If China destabilizes US democracy (more than Russia already has) that can definitely hurt you.
But it's not a competition. Both are bad, both should be resisted. I want TikTok banned AND I want comprehensive laws forbidding Facebook and domestic government from abusing my information.
Neither China nor Russia strike me as the main forces eroding US democracy (or whatever passes for democracy here), and the interference goes both ways. The idea that TikTok could drive the erosion of democratic processes in the US strikes me as silly, especially considering domestic forces like militarization and economic stagnation.
I'm actually all for a TikTok ban as long as we also ban other social media. I think it's all toxic. But the excessive focus on TikTok is just yellow peril/red scare nonsense in pursuit of a new cold war.
>The idea that TikTok could drive the erosion of democratic processes in the US strikes me as silly, especially considering domestic forces like militarization and economic stagnation.
With respect, have you been asleep for the past 7 years? The existence and tangible effects of foreign disinformation and manipulation campaigns are known and well-studied by this point. It's not unique to the US, the tragic situation in Myanmar would likely not have occurred without the existence of Facebook..
> I'm actually all for a TikTok ban as long as we also ban other social media. I think it's all toxic. But the excessive focus on TikTok is just yellow peril/red scare nonsense in pursuit of a new cold war.
We’re talking about an instant, direct, and unobservable line into the psyches of tens of millions of American teenagers.
The only reason this is even an argument is deep influence peddling and a staggering complacency towards the real long term motives of the CCP. Which are related.
This reads more like yellow peril hyperbole than reasoned arguments. The CCP is deeply unpopular in the US, and most US institutions are engaged in a demonization campaign against China.
TikTok is horrible and toxic. It should be banned, or at least tightly age-restricted. But I have seen no evidence they're worse than or a bigger threat than other US-based social media empires, and the proponents of those ideas tend to gesture towards vague communist conspiracies rather than point to observable evidence.
This kind of fear about large-scale communist subversion was common back in the 1950s too, yet that generation of American kids turned out mostly fine.
