Incline Disco Elysium - The Final Cut - a hardboiled cop show isometric RPG

[Kyl Von Kull]

at least Rostov finally got a new hat

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

I would like to tell that story but I haven't yet figured out how to do it in a way that there wouldn't be possible splash damage that I don't want to risk. Just listing my interactions with them isn't very cool at all.

Does the story involve use of the so-called illegal substances and steal-this-book practices?

 

[Sailor Woedica]

What's the best intro stuff to reading Karl Marx? (I've already read Teen Vogue's articles on 'Who Is Karl Marx" and "What Capitalism Is")

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

What's the best intro stuff to reading Karl Marx? (I've already read Teen Vogue's articles on 'Who Is Karl Marx" and "What Capitalism Is")

Disco Elysium, obviously!

 

[Tigranes]

What's the best intro stuff to reading Karl Marx? (I've already read Teen Vogue's articles on 'Who Is Karl Marx" and "What Capitalism Is")

Friedrich Hayek, naturally

 

[Prime Junta]

What's the best intro stuff to reading Karl Marx? (I've already read Teen Vogue's articles on 'Who Is Karl Marx" and "What Capitalism Is")

That’s a pretty good intro. I’d suggest The Communist Manifesto next.

Then I would go with a thoughtful critique. Karl Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies (vol 1-2) is excellent and it’ll give you a good grounding in the Western philosophical tradition as a bonus.

IMO the best way to understand Marxism is through the historical perspective. Therefore I would recommend Eric Hobsbawm’s “long 19th century” trilogy after Popper.

Once you’ve read that, Capital. From there on out you’re on your own. Might want to avoid getting too doctrinaire though so spice up your Lenin and Mao with a bit of Bakunin and Proudhon.

 

[Israfael]

It's not as easy as that.

Who does decide what is TOO radical? If you continue this infinite regression, you'll get a mono-ideological society, which is like, total opposite of democracy...

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

I also propose to read guys from the September group. Elster's Making Sense of Marx is a good start.

 

[Israfael]

eah, right, an organization placed in capitalist country, financed by capitalist country, definetly can't be count a capitalist organization...

Yeah, it's totally in the naked capitalism's interests to finance fundamental research that has no practical application in any kind of sense? After the cold war ended, the USC swiftly axed all super-expensive toys like the SSC

, but accessibility to technology - yes it is.

Yeah, for example, try to access MRI as a poor/jobless person in a total capitalist society

If it wasn't for opposing to "evul capitalists", greedy bureaucratic communist government would ignore space and technology.

How so? Science and progress was basically an ersatz religion in the Union. After the Union fell, our scientific production plummeted and still has not recovered after 30 years of unbridled reign of capitalism. In fact, it's getting worse - for some arcane reasons, capitalist enterpreneurs prefer to do less risky things than fundamental research.

 

[Prime Junta]

BTW that shout-out to Viktor Tsoi? Good stuff. I discovered him in the nineties when he was already dead. It’s a crying shame Kino isn’t better known in the West, even with the language barrier.

 

[Prime Junta]

Yeah, it's totally in the naked capitalism's interests to finance fundamental research that has no practical application in any kind of sense?

Other than war. There always seems to be money to finance war.

 

[Alpan]

It's not as easy as that.

Who does decide what is TOO radical? If you continue this infinite regression, you'll get a mono-ideological society, which is like, total opposite of democracy...

There is no infinite regression, because at some point the intolerant will just shrug and shoot you while you're harping on about infinite regression.

Intolerance is not a joke or a meme. It is the driving force behind social change. I have to say it's particularly silly to have to actually explain this stuff to Codexers on the Codex, where there's an entire subforum dedicated to Twitter people who shut down conversation at the smallest offense they take.

 

[gestalt11]

eah, right, an organization placed in capitalist country, financed by capitalist country, definetly can't be count a capitalist organization...

Yeah, it's totally in the naked capitalism's interests to finance fundamental research that has no practical application in any kind of sense? After the cold war ended, the USC swiftly axed all super-expensive toys like the SSC

, but accessibility to technology - yes it is.

Yeah, for example, try to access MRI as a poor/jobless person in a total capitalist society

If it wasn't for opposing to "evul capitalists", greedy bureaucratic communist government would ignore space and technology.

How so? Science and progress was basically an ersatz religion in the Union. After the Union fell, our scientific production plummeted and still has not recovered after 30 years of unbridled reign of capitalism. In fact, it's getting worse - for some arcane reasons, capitalist enterpreneurs prefer to do less risky things than fundamental research.

Uh yeah science really was more like a religion that's for sure ... Lysenkoism

 

[Orma]

BTW that shout-out to Viktor Tsoi? Good stuff. I discovered him in the nineties when he was already dead. It’s a crying shame Kino isn’t better known in the West, even with the language barrier.

Probably almost everyone heard 'kukushka' at some point

the problem is, that song isn't a really a good representation of the band\rest of their music

 

[gestalt11]

Yeah, it's totally in the naked capitalism's interests to finance fundamental research that has no practical application in any kind of sense?

Other than war. There always seems to be money to finance war.

If you aren't stealing shit during a war, you're doing it wrong.

 

[RNGsus]

Marx wasn't wrong about a whole lot. It's just that he never quite imagined an armed revolutionary guard would interpret his ideas into an attempt at implementing utopian transformation. He made no such forecast. From his perspective, his connection to world events is actually rather tenuous. Historically he's closer to what Disco Elysium calls a moralist -- evolutionary, gradualist, believing in democratic means such as elections, worker party competition and so on.

You just described a whole lot to be wrong about. Regardless of Khor1255's worst fears, Capitalism is not moving toward Socialism, but away.

 

[Alpan]

Regardless of Khor1255's worst fears, Capitalism is not moving toward Socialism, but away.

You'd have to be stupid or a Republican to actually think capitalism is moving toward socialism. Capitalism has been moving towards even more Capitalism since the end of the Cold War. We're living in an age where not just public resources but also nearly every aspect of private life has been successfully commoditized. If we have a future it is cyberpunk without the cool tech and much more boring corporations.

 

[gestalt11]

Regardless of Khor1255's worst fears, Capitalism is not moving toward Socialism, but away.

You'd have to be stupid or a Republican to actually think capitalism is moving toward socialism. Capitalism has been moving towards even more Capitalism since the end of the Cold War. We're living in an age where not just public resources but also nearly every aspect of private life has been successfully commoditized. If we have a future it is cyberpunk without the cool tech and much more boring corporations.

Just say its moving towards "state capitalism" and you can all be right.

 

[Tigranes]

BTW that shout-out to Viktor Tsoi? Good stuff. I discovered him in the nineties when he was already dead. It’s a crying shame Kino isn’t better known in the West, even with the language barrier.

Viktor Tsoi is fucking amazing, but I too only discovered him by accident some years ago.

 

[Inehresa]

I'd like to add Critique of the Gotha Program to the introductory reading. Other than that look for some Hegel 101 and read Althusser to get ahold of what more modern leftist thought looks like. Bonus points for poststructuralists and Nietzsche, which both aren't linked to marxism explicite, however the modes of thinking there influenced leftism. Stay away from the frankfurters because you will certainly like them for all the edgy reasons instead of the actual substance of their thought, thanks.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Yeah, it's totally in the naked capitalism's interests to finance fundamental research that has no practical application in any kind of sense?

Yes it is. As long as fundamental research offers potential in future commercial usage corporate fuckwits interested in it.

Yeah, for example, try to access MRI as a poor/jobless person in a total capitalist society

Bitch, try to be peasant or collective farm worker in Soviet Union and live without right to own passport in country where all countless bureaucratic structures require passport.

How so? Science and progress was basically an ersatz religion in the Union.

Fuck it, you are just retarded. Don't bother to reply with your retarded mumbling, go find another fool to listen how your ideology cool. I have seen enough shit that was direct heritage of socialist idiocy and not gonna buy crap that you are selling.

 

[Trashos]

There is no infinite regression, because at some point the intolerant will just shrug and shoot you while you're harping on about infinite regression.

You seem to be assuming that tolerance of speech equates/leads to tolerance of action. That is a huge assumption.

 

[Tigranes]

Yeah, it's totally in the naked capitalism's interests to finance fundamental research that has no practical application in any kind of sense?

Yes it is. As long as fundamental research offers potential in future commercial usage corporate fuckwits interested in it.

Yeah, for example, try to access MRI as a poor/jobless person in a total capitalist society

Bitch, try to be peasant or collective farm worker in Soviet Union and live without right to own passport in country where all countless bureaucratic structures require passport.

How so? Science and progress was basically an ersatz religion in the Union.

Fuck it, you are just retarded. Don't bother to reply with your retarded mumbling, go find another fool to listen how your ideology cool. I have seen enough shit that was direct heritage of socialist idiocy and not gonna buy crap that you are selling.

1. In the case of US, federal investment in basic research has been samey/declining for ~40 years.
2. Corporate investment in basic R&D has grown in absolute $s, but has been only very slowly growing as a share of GDP, since 2000. (Not sure what exact numbers are for longer period.)
3. From a ROI perspective, the payoff of basic research in terms of 'future commercial usage' is never been easy to calculate, and often remains a combination of back of envelope numbers and a general belief. Which is to say, no, it is not a guaranteed rational activity for corporations.

Combine = basic research funding is not booming over time. Rather, it is often considered at risk, while the retreat of federal funding introduces new risks around whether the best scientists will be allowed to pursue basic research to the fullest scientific conclusion.

 

[Prime Junta]

BTW that shout-out to Viktor Tsoi? Good stuff. I discovered him in the nineties when he was already dead. It’s a crying shame Kino isn’t better known in the West, even with the language barrier.

Viktor Tsoi is fucking amazing, but I too only discovered him by accident some years ago.

By the way...

There's another Russian rock group that's tangentially significant to Disco Elysium: Auktyon. They recorded an album called Zhilets Vershin with one Alexei Khvostenko. That album has a song called Bobeobi. The lyrics of that song (which are not in any human language) are a poem by one Velimir Khlebnikov, who was one of the founders of the 1920s movement called... Zaum.



(Obligatory brag: these guys I did manage to see live, in St. Petersburg some time in the early-mid-Nineties.)

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Regardless of Khor1255's worst fears, Capitalism is not moving toward Socialism, but away.

You'd have to be stupid or a Republican to actually think capitalism is moving toward socialism. Capitalism has been moving towards even more Capitalism since the end of the Cold War. We're living in an age where not just public resources but also nearly every aspect of private life has been successfully commoditized. If we have a future it is cyberpunk without the cool tech and much more boring corporations.

Huh? The State decides who can make what, when, where, how, and why. They force you under threat of violence to tithe for being tyrannized, then they force any customers to do the same.