woodenghost [comrade/them]

Space exploration is not the only thing that generates spin off effects. It’s not the only interesting science. Directly funding research into solving real problems actually works. So yes, I think it should be funded, but at this point, unmanned missions are a much better way to spend the resources: for the same money you get more science, more spin off, more everything. Just less spectacle. Space will not be profitable, or habitable in this century and that’s fine.

Ultimately, space exploration is outside the realm of production and will stay there at least for a long time. Therefore, what we spend on it is part of our societal surplus: the value we collectively create, that is left over after reproducing society. What happens to that value should be decided democratically. But in capitalism, it isn’t. Corporations control almost all the surplus and spend it on what’s profitable for them. All of space funding in the US is just crumbs falling off the table of the military industrial complex mixed with the potential for propaganda.

For example, all those year, when Hubble was the best telescope, the imperial oppression apparatus had multiple of Hubble sized telescopes whose potential was wasted on intelligence gathering for wars. Then they got even better ones and offered a few of the left overs to NASA, but NASA couldn’t even afford to make use of several free Hubble sized telescopes.

I don’t think anyone else is allowed to get one.

The latter and “oppressive” is a fully adequate choice of words. These gender-norms are enforced by punishment, ridicule, abuse and exclusion, often leading to latent trauma, emotional blunting and loss of empathy. It’s helps start the cycle of male violence early.

I don’t really have experience, but I googled a bit and until someone with more knowledge answers:

• It’s allowed to collect donations as a private person, but it’s better to do it as a “e.V.” (eingetragener Verein / registered association), that also counts as “gemeinnützig” (for the common good). Getting registered and getting the official “gemeinnützig” label can take a lot of time and work. If you have both, the donations are exempt from taxes. Plus, the people who donate would than be able to subtract the donations from their own income for taxes.
• Yes, don’t use your normal account. You could make a second account under your name for donations. Some banks don’t offer a second free account though. Plus it might still cause extra work if it’s deemed “suspicious”.
• Yes the finance office will be interested. Technically your “donations” count as gifts. If you don’t take any income for yourself and the gifts stay below 20000€ per gifter total within 10 years, you might not have to pay taxes. (But don’t take my word for it). The relevant taxes are “Einkommenssteuer” (definitely if you get any income) and long-term probably also “Gewerbesteuer”+“Umsatzsteuer” (but for that I really don’t know, maybe even if you don’t get income but do it long-term) and finally “Schenkungssteuer” (if above 20000 per 10 years).
• An easy, quick and tax free solution might be, if you contact an existing “gemeinnütziger Verein” near you (that you trust) and just ask them if you can use their account.
• using a normal bank or an online platform makes no difference to the laws for taxes (I think)

Good luck!

Yes. The contradictions of capitalism are only getting worse. Workers, care givers, nature, social institutions, racialized people and countries, all can only be exploited and expropriated so much. But capitalism demands more and more. So it will continue getting worse until successful revolutions. But you don’t have to feel detached about it. You can try to understand it, tell others about it, look around for awesome people struggling against it, maybe even find ways to help them. I started reading Nancy Fraser’s new book “Cannibal Capitalism” it’s short, tries to be accessible and it explains how all those areas of struggle I mentioned above are connected.

Everything is political.

This is probably a stupid question, but if your browser accepts cookies, wouldn’t they simply track you through those regardless of account or VPN? Same with app data.

I’ve never even been to the US and agree with what you say. But travel dosn’t necessarily make you have good takes. Tourism is often very destructive and ignorant.

Also, among people from outside the imperial core, who travel a lot, there is a different bias: they are more likely to be comprador capitalists, because you need money to travel. For example in Egypt, I’ve only met people critical of the military. Outside Egypt, I’ve only met Egyptians who support it and whose families have high status because of positions in the military. Or take Cuban or Venezuelan exiles, who hate their home countries socialist politics. I’m also not sure, if the trend to move to Dubai to work a high profile job for one or two years in a totally artificial setting broadens anyone’s cultural horizon.

Classes are defined by their relations to the means of production and by contradictions in how society reproduces itself which lead to periodic crisis. Class societies require very complex structures to uphold hegemony of the ruling classes and manage all the crisis and move them in time and space towards other societies or to future generations. Which leads to constant war, environmental destruction, etc and is unsustainable in the long term. Like capitalism needs to expand all the time, which is just impossible on a finite planet and structurally needs to produce devisive ideologies like racism and patriarchy to survive.

A classless society, once achieved, doesn’t need all this. Getting there requires a lot of struggle because the ruling class has set up all those structures to protect their privilege. But once we’re there, society will actually be way more stable than before. No classes means that structures to uphold hegemony aren’t necessary any more. That includes the state, which is really just a weapon in class warfare. Racism and patriarchy aren’t human nature. They are constantly fabricated and upheld with huge efforts by the ruling class. Those efforts would be free to build other structures instead. Once that actual connect people instead of driving them against each other. No inherent periodic crisis means those don’t have to be managed anymore and society can actually continue to develop sustainably without exploiting to exhaustion natural resources, human minds and bodies, communities and societal bonds and care structures like families.

It’s hard for us to imagine, because we’re so used to thinking inside class societies. It even forms our anthropology, how we think of other people and our ability to emphasize with them. But future people who live it will have a hard time imagining how it could ever have been different.

Sounds like they wouldn’t hesitate to apologize, if it wasn’t to a manager. But it seems, in this case, it doesn’t matter wether she is a manager. Not apologizing would not further class struggle nor raise class consciousness in any way. Apologizing doesn’t cost anything else either. On the contrary, they want to do it. She probably needs to hear it. It’s good for the emotional health of anyone involved, including the one apologizing.

I say this, not despite being a Marxist Leninist, but precisely because I’m ML: capitalist, worker, manager and (dare I say it) even cop. Those are all just roles people take on. The roles can change, but we’re all still humans underneath. You can love your enemy and still fight them, when necessary. But if it doesn’t serve a purpose and even makes you feel bad, why bother being mean?

The Nazi and fascist theorist Carl Schmidt (who’s still very influential) viewed politics solely in terms of friend and enemy. And being an enemy to him is meant existential, personal and eternal. He wouldn’t have apologized. Marxists know, that class is not about who you are as a person, but about the social role one occupies. We can distinguish between interpersonal conflicts and class struggle. The true enemy is the class relation itself.

Maybe spend time with it without expectations. Just fully take it in and notice little things about it. Notice how it really is and how it makes you feel. Maybe like this?

TIL about attendance based school funding in the US.

The thing with the bike must have been long before graduation, right? So there were probably consequences already. Seems kind of petty to deny him the stage.

Technology transfer was critical, and it lowers the barrier to constant capital heavy industries, but doesn’t remove it completely. You still have to get the physical machines. Also not all technology serves capital heavy industry. A lot of it is also needed for labor intensive industries just to keep up with the overall development of technology and demand. It’s hard to quantify how much of the technology transfer served to break out of the trap and how much just kept it going.

No one mentioned the economic law behind this yet.

The fact that “everything is made in China” is often framed like a China win, because China managed to turn it that way, but that’s a recent development. Historically it’s a consequence of decades of unequal exchange to the benefit of the imperial core. China lost unimaginable amounts of value because of this. But let’s start from the beginning.

Marx discovered the tendency of the rate of profit to equalize across industries with differing organic compositions of capital. All value comes from human labor, so capital flows first into labor intensive industries. This increases supply and lowers prices of goods produced with lots of labor below their value (think clothing from sweat shops). In turn, capital is slow to flow into industries with lots of constant capital (machines etc.). The initial investment is a barrier and machines don’t produce value, only humans do. The prices of goods from industries with lots of constant capital rise above their value. In the end, profits equalize by means of prices. Otherwise, if one industry were more profitable, capital would flow there, until it’s equal again. But for profits to remain equal, value has to flow constantly in the direction of high concentrations of constant capital.

In the context of globalization, the same thing as for different industries, also goes for countries. Countries with high concentrations of constant capital, like the imperial core countries, sell commodities above their value. Countries in the so called global South with labor intensive industries sell commodities below their true value. In this way, the poor countries subsidize the rich. This is unequal exchange.

China was the “workbench of the world” for a long time and lost enormous amounts of value to the US and Europe by selling commodities produced in labor intensive industries below their true value (which is their socially necessary labor time). In turn for this period of servitude, they got left alone. The cold war focused on the Soviet Union and China mostly stayed out of it. They were little more than useful vassals of the empire and toiled away to fill the shelves of Walmart and the homes in the suburbs with cheap goods. But at least they had peace and time to develop. Now they have developed and they rightfully want out of this disadvantageous deal.

That’s why US relations to China deteriorated the moment China started building up capital intensive industries like for semiconductors. It wasn’t just about wanting China to do “cheap labor”, but about restricting China to labor intensive industries and keep the unequal exchange via the equalization of the rate of profit going.

The full text of the communist manifesto in fine print on the inside and this on the outside:

Okay, I’ll be the silent part

Juggling. I’d find some nice stones or pinecones and teach everyone how to juggle and do some tricks. I also know an ancient game you can play with stones or knuckle bones. And I know some songs. And stories. People in the stone age had lots of free time to pass, so all of these would come in handy.

I think, Venice is still the only city literally charging an entrance fee. They do that, because they got more tourists, than the city could handle. But I think what you have heard might be about tourist taxes. Many cities charge those per night. But you won’t notice it directly, it’s just that, if you’re staying in a hotel, they’ll automatically add it to the price of the room.

I second Prague. It’s beautiful and worth it whether you come for the history or the culture or the atmosphere.

An afterlife. Might be nice.