/lit/ - Literature

>>17032897
Unplug from the internet entirely. Actually talk to people. Not small talk. Actually talk to them. Take a hike. Start a hobby where you work with your hands.
Leave the cave. Enjoy what you’ve been given

The one thing I find that helps is having a hobby out of the house, and that's apart from getting exercise. I keep my Youtube/4chan use to a minimum and basically deleted social media other than messaging apps. The trouble with this approach is that even if you've changed your behavior, you haven't really changed how other people act. You can't really change the world like this. I recommend you get a hobby that involves being out in nature alone or together with people. Canoeing, fishing, sailing, hiking, climbing, trekking, anything, really.

>>17032897
how hard are these to read? can a brainlet that is only familiar with plato jump into them and hope to come out with something fruitful?

>>17033016
Read "The Shallows" to start then Marx and move on from there

>>17032935
Based. It's this simple, OP.

>muh capitalism boogeyman
based pseud

>>17033064
Capitalism isn't the boogeyman these books present

>>17033064
You saw marx in the chart and made this post didn't you? Capital is to the current system what video games are to the matrix. This is beyond based and cringe, let go of the buzzwords for a second man. Genuinepost over

>>17033016
Fisher's Capitalist Realism is short and snappy.

Reading the things from this chart, along with Fear and Trembling and Sickness Unto Death, inspired me to return to Christianity.

>>17033096
It's inspiring me to learn more about Celtic paganism personally

>>17033096
Pretty based, except for the return to christianity. Kierkegaard is definitely blindpill-tier.

>>17032935
>>17033027
The problem with this is that other people are still internet zombies incapable of having genuine conversation.

>X-pill
Go back

>>17032897
>and I'm reaching the point where I feel like my entire life is fake and society is a lie.
based
now you only need one and that is pic related

Go join a monastery, OP, or pull a Thoreau

What's reading these supposed to show me? That we're living in a consumerist society? I already knew that

>>17034818
This one is nice because it is apolitical

>>17034801
Just talk to old people m8
Alternatively talk to some homeless dude and give him five bucks afterwards

>>17032897
Lacan would be a good addition

>>17032897
HIGHLY suggest this

>>17035169
>That we're living in a consumerist society?
Nope

>>17035882
Different anon here, but what is the blind pill then? I don't expect a 10 page thesis, but a brief summary would help.

>>17035922
Images and symbols have replaced reality in our society and changed the way we think, this change is meditated by things like television and the internet

>>17033112
>spend enough time with the Celts
>convert to Catholicism
Like that movie: Secret of Kells. Paganism is demonic and antinatural. The Pagan God kills nature and is a bane of the Irish and a friend to the demon Vikings. The Christian monk is tasked to bring light to darkness, to incarnate God, the Logos, Order, vía his art, via
his trade as a scribe. He firstly befriends nature, God’s creation, and practices drawing vegetable figures. This gives him the strength to trap the demon in hell. Coming closer to nature he comes closer to God. By analyzing the fallen nature of the demon, he extracts geometric and mathematical figures from the natural forms he is familiar with: in other words, starts drawing knots instead of vines. The demon had an angelic nature but was fallen. By defeating the demon he approximated to the angelic. That is, closer to God. With this insight he begins the Book of Kells.Vegetation is abstent in the book of Kells. Only higher-order concepts like geometric figures. Geometry extracted from nature. Logos incarnating in art. What was his page? The CHI RHO page. Which is Christ’s represented as an incarnated monogram. This page has figures of animals eating communion hosts. It is a cosmological view of Christ. He brings light to the darkness and destroys the Pagan and brings joy and happiness to the oppressed.
The path to God:
>befriend and understand nature
>defeat the demonic, get closer to the angelic
From vines and leaves to geometric shapes and knots. From natural to angelic

>>17036213

The only way to escape the illusions of the City of Man is to approach the City of God and learn to love, hope, and believe in the Logos. In truth, order, beauty, and goodness—not false simulations of such. To start—get closer to nature. Spend time in the forest, above and under the ocean, or focus your eyes to moss under the rocks or if you’re unfortunate to live too deep within urbania—grab a microscope and look at gutter water. Nature was created Good. Learn from it. Don’t forget to LOVE it. Yeah that’s a start to get away from man’s simulations

>>17036213
So that was how an artist incarnated the Logos (figuratively speaking) but how was the Logos incarnated in flesh? Via Mary. Now what did she do? Praying a lot, reading scripture a lot, maintaining complete purity, love, humility, and meditating all things in her heart. Attending to her simple state as a Carpenter’s wife in a backwater desert town. Learn from the blessed mother as an example of the greatest of humanity—as well as learning from nature

Why christianity though?

>>17032897
There are different ways to observe an eclipse

>>17032935
I'm terminally online. Talking to real people will just lead to embarrassment.

>>17037057
That is something you need to fix

>>17037192
It's not like I like my current situation. If I'd knew how to fix it then I'd give it a shot.

>>17037242
When you get the vaccine
1) Close your computer
2) Go outside

>>17033016
read brave new world then neil postman
I'd delay a lot on this chart until you've more familiarity with the canon than just plato, especially the 20th century philosophers on here

>>17037275
>Go outside
and what do I do outside? I tried that a while ago. I used to go to the park, lie around there and listen to podcasts or read books, which usually also turned into a nice nap.
That had zero impact on and conversation abilities or my social life.

>>17035853
Is this really good? I got it a couple of years ago but never got round to reading it thoroughly.

Really wish I saved that wojak who goes from browsing his phone under his covers, all the way to removing his laptop, tidying his room and going outside. Anybody got that?
But yeah, I agree with the other anons. I'm assuming you can cancel your internet subscription anytime. So do it, live without the internet for awhile.

>blind pill
>no homer

>>17037367
yes very much so. in the chart, I would replace New Dark Age with it

>>17037463
It's not a chart for blind writers you dumb idiot.

>>17037353
Why don't you try doing something more active? I bought a kayak last year and take it to the lake often.

>>17037697
>Why don't you try doing something more active?
I guess I wouldn't know what to do. Well that and money. I'm living off pasta, rice and potatoes right now. No way I could afford a kayak.

>>17037353
>be human being in the 21st Millenium
>can’t find anything to do outside

>>17037764
Bro, depending where you live you can start trail hiking or even cycling. If you have a friend, any friend, try to do one of these things together. That's the worst part of digital capitalism: it makes poorer people have no alternative to interacting with screens. But hang in there, anon. You will prevail somehow.

>>17032897
>Societies maintain a set of useful fictions in order to function.
Whoa, man, heavy stuff.

>>17036303
hey sorry to break this to you man, but christianity is an early form of something like the spectacle

>>17037353
>go outside
>"I went outside! With headphones on, and I closed my eyes and took a nap!"
>"Why am I not better at conversation??"

>>17037881
Well, go ahead, explain why

>>17032897
Stop identifying with the superstructure so much. Maybe your past life was fake, but that's the past. And society is a lie, there's no way out, only forward.

>>17037875
>Societies maintain a set of useful fictions in order to function.
That's bad you colossal faggot.

>>17038075
The alternative is barbarism.

>>17038128
Is it really, can you not think of anything else?

>>17032935
Fpbp, this needs to be copypasta'd to every post asking for retarded advice.

>>17038222
yes we can just all become schizos like deleuze suggested and just dance and be happy

>>17036615
because it's true

>>17038329
You can have useful fictions that aren't enforced in a top-down fashion by the elites but instead arise from a grassroots movement decided by the people.

>>17032935
>Not small talk. Actually talk to them.
Or just talk to people as necessary. What is this use in making causal conversation besides troublemaking?

>>17037860
Thank you for spreading positivity and genuine advice that reflects genuine concern for your fellow human anon

>>17032897
Read this almost two years ago now. As dumb as it sounds it was kind-of eye opening for me.
It could have added GR, especially The Counterforce. And The Ticket that Exploded for sure
1) Accept that all of your culture, interests, etc, were shit. We all do/like dumb things when we are young. You'll get better at spotting the things that are a waste of time and those that aren't.
2) As others have said, get a real interest. A physical hobby is great - running, hiking, biking, skating,... anything that lets you just "get outside", and offers some path to improvement. Sticking to this alone for meaning is dumb, but it's a start at rooting yourself in something other than consumption (yes, even reading is consumption)
3)Start having a purpose to the reading, or internet browsing, you do. What are you trying to get to the bottom of? What authors touch on that. Start taking notes
4) Write journal entries at least weekly. It's surprising that so few people do this. Reflect on what you are doing and consuming constantly.
5) Accept that belonging is a crock of shit too, and that that sort f feeling is glued together by the shit we consume. Don't eschew sociality, but just be okay with feeling like you aren't "caught up" on things withing your friend group
6) Have friends too. If you don't have much at the moment, just reach out to ppo you haven't talked to in a while. Doing physical activities together is a great way to form friendships together

>>17037905
God was created by man in order to provide a certain social organization and metaphysics, one way of making the world thinkable, and just serves as metaphor to describe an unthinkable reality. transcendence, elevating a certain image above the rest of reality (e.g. believing in a god outside of the world) represents the expression of certain values originating in desire which results from evolution. Faith is merely a term to express why you have adopted a certain metaphorical understanding over other

>>17038425
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH LMAOOOOO

>>17039022
chud

I tried reaching out to my friends to go hiking but they started going on about corona regulations

>>17039017
>God was created by man
>desire which results from evolution

>>17038425
HAHAHAHAHA HOLY SHIT YOU BITCH

>>17039022
>>17039497
You ok bro?

>>17039517
One wasn't me, truth be told.

>>17039517
I’m chill

>>17032897
I've been reading all these books without knowing they were in a chart. I felt like they had a running theme.

>>17037860
This is good advice. It's amazing how good it starts to feel to be out in the woods with your friends without the possibility of checking a screen.

Pretty good chart, I've read 7 of these. I'd probably add Foucault's Discipline and Punish. To answer your question, spending time with other people in the real world, difficult as that may be at the moment, is probably the best solution to the insanity. Or, take Baudrillard's advice from the system of objects and cosset your ennui in an easy chair. Chill out for a wee bit.

oh, and make sure you gee the fuck offline for a bit

After reading these type of books I physically cringe at being a sports fan in my youth. Jesus Christ I was one of those obsessed superfans that made my identity some irrelevant team of millionaires that couldnt give a fuck about me or know I exist.

>>17032897
I think the scariest thing—the crisis—in “existential crisis” is not the existential crisis itself...but the lack of the ability to have an existential crisis. The lack of waking from autopilot. Do these books address this concern?

>>17040180
Yeah. That's what the spectacle is. That's what simulacra does. That's the effect of the sublime object of ideology. That is the infinite jest.

>>17040232
Yeah...I’m really rather interested in this as I just spent a week in a wealthy big city for the first time—subwaying all day—exposed to observe the gratification of all human pleasures—realizing how little I used my head, how little I reflected inwardly, how little I thought, how utterly distracted I was the whole time. $20 gelato and chocolate. I walked into an Amazon bookstore. It was like all the /lit/ memes came alive. I thought the Internet was disconnected from reality...no I was wrong once I walked into the Amazon bookstore. The vanity of all wealth and pleasure. My desire to be a hermit in the wilderness increased to an almost obsessive level. When I came on the flight back home, to the hot, humid, but clean and free from air pollution tropical air, when I came home and there was a 24 hour power outage the whole day, when I could see the stars so brightly compared to next-to-nothing in that city, when I go to my bed and there are 2 ticks sitting on the pillow—I WAS SO HAPPY. Yes, the City of Man, that is not my interest. Let me to my examinations of conscience and meditation in the jungle. I do not want to be a drone in a hive, serviced to satisfy all my pleasures. Satisfied City people walking out of the Amazon bookstore with $30 meme books. Girls eating gelato. Everything ridiculously overpriced. Attractive Interns flying in to do nothing at all except surrogate activities. Social networking. If I had all the money in the world I would not be happy in such a city

>>17040180
Kierkegaard is right up your alley, my friend. Fear & Trembling/The Concept of Anxiety are my suggestions.

I haven't been able to sleep in 4 days
I'm addicted to the internet
I can't escape the spectacle and now that I know it it doesn't feel the same everything feels dirty

>>17041202
Buy/pirate/download an internet blocker app. Block out shit like 4chinz, youtube and other addictive websites for at least 15 days to get your willpower in check.

>>17040377
Very good post

>>17038425
You're pawing at something but why are you speaking nonprofitese?

>>17038425
>>17042648
One word:
>subsidiarity
I suppose that is the non-nonprofitese way of saying it

>>17041202
>>17041413

Coldturkey is pretty good for this.

Is it normal to find McLuhan's prose dense and hard to process? His conclusions generally make sense, but he doesn't justify many of them and often gives a ton of examples at once expecting you to fill in the blanks. He makes great points but I wish he would write more clearly.

That aside, I spent some days offline recently, and resolved to limit myself to 3 hours a day of net use. The result so far is I spent more time reading, and more time dwelling on the things in life that really matter to me. The internet of 2020 feels like a sedative for all the bright young 20-somethings to go in and intellectually waste away. Like >>17038973 said, having a purpose is what matters. It doesn't have to be a "meaning of life"ーit's just what you ought to focus on now according to your circumstances. Don't let technology's values override your own as a human being.

>>17033016
As a fellow brainlet I'd say don't bother with Dialectic of Enlightenment. I was helping my sister with a uni assignment on it and it took us 2 hours to fully understand a 3 page excerpt. (meaning actually know the meaning of every sentence) Would have had a much easier time if I had been familiar with Hegel (who I've heard is the ultimate cancer to read) before reading and if my native language wasn't shitty for philosophy translations though. I had no problem with the Greeks in comparison.

>>17043375
To add, I liked the content, just not smart enough to enjoy reading it.

>>17043388
Language anon?

>>17043190
McLuhan is pretty intense. He doesn't hold your hand, and if you watch any interviews with him he's basically like "I'm not going to walk you though it, figure it out yourself, read a fucking book, I had to get through Finnigan's wake and the western cannon to get here you asshole"

>>17043190
Do you think it's genuinely possible for society to close the Pandora's box of modern media (internet 24/7 new etc) by personal volition? Govermental coercion?

If there's no way to destroy or mitigate the negative aspects of instant, decentralised and non-filtered information what does it mean for social cohesion?

>read some bog-standard Commie propaganda and Naming of the Jew texts
>aaaaaaaaaaa im going insane111111
Really, OP?

>>17043733
It means that those who have a poor environment or are genetically predisposed to addiction will fail and suffer and inequality will continue to grow as everyone fights for their digital fix as their bodies wither away and the extremely wealthy continue to steal value from them through their moving picture shows.

The individual cannot do anything, the great man theory is a lie.

The market won't fix it because the market loves it.

Government is owned by the corporations who want you to stay in the spectacle.

I think the only real way to combat it is mutual aid and community building. The same thing that brings people out of being consumers and back into being citizens.

>>17043721
On the bright side he doesn't expect a lot of knowledge from you. Understanding Media is certainly a tome, but I have others' assurance that it's worth it, at least.

>>17043733
Not who you're replying to, but I see that as an impossibility without some kind of global collapse. How could it happen? The general public all of a sudden becoming resistant to addiction? Impossible in my mind.

>>17043711
Czech

>>17043772
>but I have others' assurance that it's worth it, at least.
Oh yeah. When my mom got her masters she dove deep into Mcluhan, even got in contact with his son who continues some of his studies. It's all really neat stuff.

>>17043761
>>17043773
It's rather amusing how doom-and-gloom everyone is about the future, sometimes I simply wonder if this is all cyclical; I can't imagine anyone in the 1930's being particularly upbeat. It's all a bit easy: 'things are getting worse despite all the mechanical and technological progressions'. And yet, I really can't shake the feeling that things ARE going catastrophically wrong, that we ARE going down a path from which there will never be a return to a normal 'good', that we ARE putting into practice the fundamental principles that (then, though rudimentary) inspired ww2, genetic modification, rampant industrial progress removing the need of unskilled labour, the death of god and so on.

Try as I might I simply can't see any escape route, no open doors, no bright lights.

Who can stop capital? Who wants to? The age old conceit is being revealed! Civilisation is a mere veil for the process of continual efficiencies!

>>17043733
For that to happen, the minimum requirement is for people to recognize the new media as a source of our problems, that it's distorting our vision and causing huge societal upheaval, but even this is far away. The public is still firmly entrenched in the "What matters isn't the technique but in how you use it" mindset. To 90% of people, social media is fine outside of "fake news". To try and convince them news shouldn't be entertainment in the first place is a hard sell. The very act of tech skepticism is a hard sell because of the tacit belief in technology as a means to future utopia which both sides accept nowadays. All tech that can be produced, must be produced, but in practice people will select what's comfortable to them. And the internet is very comfortable. It's that same form of weary, passive acceptance you got from TV critics in the 90's. "I know I'm better than this, but I'm still going to watch it."

I side with Ellul in the sense that probably nothing will change this trend. Where is it going? Who knows? If it is disrupted, it will be from some outside force like a war. We could also hope for a Deus Ex scenario where all global communications are routed through one system and hope it fails. But this is fantasy. People called him a pessimist for thinking technique would only keep developing as it had been, but he was only being realistic.

>>17043849
So I just watched this movie the other day, and it has a legit McLuhan character in it. During the period of neo-80s back to the future bullshit cyberpunk garbage, there was a movie that portrayed the future and the idea of the blind pill back then. Pretty neat.

>>17043849
>I can't imagine anyone in the 1930's being particularly upbeat.
That is a pretty short cycle, anon. Look further back. Western society was in equilibrium until a few hundred years ago. Eastern societies too were stable before technology. Consider that Japanese still worshipped the emperor 80 years ago. We started with functioning, small-scale, collective societies designed by and for man and reprogrammed them around the machine. There is no cycle here. It's rapid, unprecedented change, plain and simple.

>>17032897
Go even further. Read The Bible, Behold a Pale Horse, Plato, The Creature from Jekyll Island, The Report from Iron Mountain, Libido Dominandi.

>>17043950
>Western society was in equilibrium until a few hundred years ago
Nigger what

>>17043849
Yeah, you said pretty much what I wanted to say but better. There's no way out while the machinery keeps turning for profit. I realize this is an old-hat opinion, but my strategy has just been to use the system and get what I can from it, then live somewhere quiet/away from it when I'm able.

You could say we're fortunate to still have that option. I think that will be a little more difficult when there are 10+ billion on the planet.

>>17043934
Which one? Max?

>>17043959
What would you call the pre-Enlightenment Medieval era, except for stable? Disease and famine are tragic, but they're natural and expected. We had an entire millennium plus some of feudal Europe. It had its flaws, but on a grand scale it was undeniably stable.

>>17043907
The problem is this sort of media isn't just a means of communicating ideas with the masses, a direct pipeline into their brains. No!

All informational technology is necessarily a military and economic one too. Indian villages refused and rebelled against the idea of British telegraph lines linking up the homes, why? What better way to marshal a punitive raid than with the speed of the telegraph? Enforce more strictly pre-existing custom's duties?

The destruction of the means of communication won't destroy the remnants; the missiles, the nukes, the armies and aircraft carriers, the economic lifeblood, all you've done is remove any possible way of mediation! (which btw is why I rejected Tong's ending in favour of the AI union, I fear that's a more probable outcome)

>>17043966
Overpopulation's a spook.

The reality is that the principle issue of today is overpopulation, as in, too many superfluous mouths, not as measured by the 10's of billions but simply billions. It used to be that you needed a century and 100 million women shooting out kids to create the statistical right end of the bell curve. But with gene moddiing for intelligence and industrial progression for manufacture, who needs them? They're simply a useless underclass that has been obsoleted as any old industrial machine has. And what happens to old outdated agents? Systems?
Perhaps soothing hums and haws shall protest about 'inalienable rights' 'human dignity' and some such, but we all know, in the end the fat is always cut off!

>>17044150
How does one prevent being cut

>>17040377
ill see you at work tomorrow jimmy. heard you got a new cubicle.

>>17043993
brian oblivion is the mcluhan stand in and Max is just the vessel in which the spectacle works itself.

>>17044381
Damn you're right, he both looks like him and has a similar philosophy.

>>17033016
The difficulty of these books varies wildly.
Brave New World is High School level.
Amusing Ourselves to Death, The Shallows, Manufacturing Consent, and New Dark Age are also very accessible.
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a very short essay. I would also recommend reading some of Benjamin's other essays like These on the Philosophy of History, and some of his stuff on literature.
Infinite Jest is a fiction book like Brave New World but a quite a bit longer, though you should be able to get through it with some perseverance.
Society of the Spectacle, The Question Concerning Technology, On Television,and Capitalist Realism are all pretty short, but can be hard to get through in certain parts.
Capital, Dialectic of Enlightenment, and the two books by Baudrillard are all somewhat long and will require some effort to understand.
D&G's Capitalism & Schizophrenia series (no clue why the list only includes Thousand Plateaus) is probably the most difficult thing on that list.

Haven't read the rest.

>>17034801
The people that are out hiking and enjoying nature are less likely to be internet zombies.

I'm going insane

>>17045061
It’s literally nightmaregoggles.jpg

I'm curious about the answer to OPs question as it relates to careers. Im a software developer and, while it's intellectually stimulating, I've lost the ability to find any meaning in it. How can I feel good about my job being a part of society's insatiable lust for greater efficiency? Am I doomed to sit and stare at a computer dreaming about being a farmer in the Appalachians for the rest of my life?

>>17046210
You could always save up until you can live remotely or try to find remote work -- or both. Easier said than done, of course.

>>17046210
I suggest the book “bullshit jobs: a theory”. The fact is, the work that fees most meaningful is paid the least. When it comes to software, all the fun stuff is open source and the daytime worker just ducktapes it together while making the stuff they like for free at home. It’s a vicious cycle. Any skillset can be used to generate meaning and fulfillment, but you have to make sacrifices for that.

>>17044246
I have to admit you did get pretty close with the name guess...well damn!

>>17046310
Great fucking book. Graeber was a big loss.

>>17046210
Friend, I really think you should look into labor theory and stuff like that. Escaping the rat race is perhaphs the #1 concern for every conscious middle-class person I've ever met. I'm in the same boat, except that I'm an attorney wasting my 20s away for a bunch of corporations.

>>17046412
Not that anon, just some weak suburban zoomer, but I just want to climb down the social ladder into hard physical labor/trade (agriculture) in some Latinoamérica literallywhere, but I don’t know where to start, If I talk about it, I sound like a LARPer, but I’m afraid I’m destined to be an upper middle class bugman. I like looking at African/South American farming villages using Google Earth and studying about their way of life. I’m not idealizing it, I know some people want to desperately leave that life, I know they struggle with starvation, but I just want to live like people lived hundreds of years ago. I don’t have some farm-family-fantasy meme. I just want to be a hermit who can feed himself. I accept and recognize that due to my wealthy and comfortable uprbringing, I deserve to have a life of suffering from here on out to harden up so I can die justly. I just prefer the sufferings in a rural village to that of a cubicle. I find it more in accordance with my spiritual aspirations to progress in the virtues.

>>17034855
he's honestly not that convincing and does a half ass job of explaining most of the thinkers hes referencing. You would be better off just reading any of the works mentioned in the book rather than the book itself

>>17046474
>zoomer
There's ya problem. Hard physical labor and agriculture are cucked jobs. Only hunter gatherers were chads. Read James C. Scott's "Against the Grain", you'll thank me later.

>>17046497
>t. Sentineleseposter
Well I think it’s more cucked that your tribe decided to install an internet connection

>>17046551
I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, bro.

>>17046578
If you’re advocating for hunter/gathering in anno domini 2020, and I have the kindness to not consider you a LARPer, then the only option I have is to assume you are Sentinelese since WHO exclusively hunts or gathers anymore other than them?!

>>17046609
I don't recommend that, I don't recommend anything. I've become nihilistic as fuck since I cannot see any end from this insanity. You're definitely right, though.

>>17032897
Jorble Beterson; You're blind and will always be blind, but do your best anyway and you'll be fine.

>>17046632
>yfw rain arrows on helicopters, harass visiting angl*s and indi*ns and pr*testants, fish and hunt crabs, then return to the untouched old-growth megaforest and the comfy cave-hut you call home
Of course there’s probably toothaches and subincisions, but sometimes I think the Sentinelese are just a reddit meme. Sounds way too good to be true. Constant aggression to degenerate outsiders signals some form of ancient, refined wisdom

>>17046412
Yo dude, I just passed the bar exam. Based existential crisis attorneys hating the idea that the entire profession is based in protecting private property and if I were to ever go back into big law again I'd neck myself off the skyscraper I worked in.

>>17032897
Achieve Hume/Stirner/Whitehead synthesis

>>17046688
Is private property intrinsically evil or something?

>>17046682
They probably don't get toothaches because their diet doesn't contain an unholy amount of sugar and HFCS

>>17046707
It's literally only there to protect the rich. That's why criminals approach the Nietzschian ideal: they steal, they take what they want by force.

>>17046233
Post-COVID this wouldn't be too difficult.
>>17046310
>>17046412
I'll look into these recs, thanks anons.

>>17046743
>It's literally only there to protect the rich.
It is also there to protect the notion of society.

>>17032897
is this thread intentionally cringe or is that an accident?

>>17046707
I don't think it's "intrinsically evil". I don't think anything is. Positing a value judgement on a concept without any given context or emotional/physical use of the given thing within the boundaries of what the audience derives a morality from is a little silly to posit.

I'm just saying the job of the lawyer is to protect their clients property interests. The only people that can afford lawyers are wealthy people. Defunded institutions perpetuate the façade of justice while being economically efficient in favor of those with the resources to do so. If I have to write up one more breach of contract pleading over a couple thousand dollars where the litigation fees cost more than the litigation conclusion itself, I'm gonna eat my shoe. So much of the civil side is economic squabbles where the real power dynamic is shown in the procedural aspects of the process and not the material idealism of what the legal system purports itself to be. This is not what I had in mind when I went to law school. But as I said earlier. The more meaningful the job, the less you get paid. So it's not like I'm gonna go running off to do public interest law with 6 figures of debt and bills to pay.

If you want to read more on how dumb the whole legal system is, I'd recommend The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System by Bruce Cannon.

>>17046807
Ah good explanation. Man the Anons in this thread really are pumping out some nice book recs

>>17033096
religion is part of the spectacle...

>>17046901
“Religion” is something of an extremely broad word don’t you think? Care to specify?

>>17046832
I’ve also been enjoying a book called something like 10 legal systems very different from our own. Haven’t got very far, but it’s interesting to see how other countries/empires worked throughout time when my entire life now revolves around one particular one. It only applies to this thread in the sense that it unveils the absurdity of the us legal system by comparison to others.

>>17046917
Is there one particular legal system that stands out as especially attractive, or all they all miles above the US system?

>>17046901
Not necessarily, friend. Mystical and mythological beliefs can give rise to non-spectacular modes of being. But that's not the same as the shows put on by the Official Catholic Church or retarded angloid protestants with their megachurches and whatnot.

>>17047006
To be honest, my foray into alternative legal systems has been lackluster at best. I think they had a comparative law class, but I heard it was a slack off class, so I never took it. And I don't think I've read or researched enough into alternative systems at a granular level to give particulars. Been wanting to read into guys like Evgeny Pashukanis and stuff like that, but I just haven't had the time. It would be interesting to read about, and I'd love to write about these types of things, but I feel as if all I do is regurgitate.

>>17047052
>Evgeny Pashukanis
Based

>>17047052
I feel ya

>>17038425
Mass culture is always garbage

>>17047210
Mass culture is always top-down.

https://youtu.be/qRBaykxoFt4
Pretty good related film

>>17032993
Yes. It's easy. Just let yourself be happy.

God, for all this book reading a lot of you are just fucking retards. Life is easy and happy if you just let it be happy and stop questioning everyone. Yes most people can't think. Yes ads manipulate society. Yes people are very much so automatons. So what? You can still be happy with them.

You simply have to learn to accept and love their blindness and hate those who manipulate it. It's not evolutionarily wise to see truth and be rational. Accept that, move on. People were probably schizophrenic for most of ancient history and those traits are still present to this day. Accept it and move on.

>>17039333
yes, evolution is an immanent representation and fits the bill as opposed to a transcendent representation like God

>>17039017
Wrong. God was created by non-man. The non-man sleeping in the non-dominant portion of your brain right now. The non-man who teeters at the edge of your awareness and tells you to stay conscious. The non-man you talk to, but who never responds. The imaginary friend. Irrational, but providing complete authorization.

God was not some rational beast to be understood by the conscious. There's a reason christians separate the body, soul, and spirit. The soul (your mind) can never understand the spirit (the non-man portion of your mind), but always craves it.

>>17047486
This is like a nonsensical mixture of pop psychology and idiotic christianity. The christian god is either an anthropomorphic man in the sky, or a rational conceptual abstraction.

>>17047486
you're saying God is the unconscious elements of subjectivity, which is not what Christians refer to as god

>>17047447
>don’t help people out of the cave, just be happy and hate those who own the cave

>>17047484
Evolution can not explain religion or many modern psychological phenomenon. The main point being that evolution can not explain consciousness. It's a major hole in the field of evolutionary psychology.

Many phenomenon that we take as real, have very little basis in evolution. Many likely were created by humans and simply didn't exist before being defined. Concepts such as love are a good example of this. There's no proof love existed before Sappo defined it.

>>17047511
Nope. I'm not christian, but God was not created by a rational man. There's no proof humans were rational or conscious when the old testament was being first written.

>>17047519
I don't care what the hypocritical christians have defined as their god. They've had 1000s of years to redefine and rework their definition.

The old testament god is this subjective schizophrenic being.

>>17047523
No, there is no helping them out. Why waste your time? Help those that can be helped out, but don't waste your time on those who can't.

You can't make a dog into a thinking man. Just be happy that he's happy and screw anyone who would manipulate the simpleness of the dog.

>>17035738
Do this, old people will actually enjoy talking to you

>>17047533
regardless of its origin, desire and the will to power are best served by immanent representations. similarly, the origin of God doesn't really matter, post Plato he exists as an anthropomorphization of the forms

>>17047621
He absolutely does not exist as anthropomorphization of the forms. The fact that seers and oracles remained relevant well into Rome is proof of this.

What the hell do you think people like the oracle of delphi are? How do you rationalize war generals taking their prophecy into consideration in their decisions? Hint, they weren't talking to these anthropomorphic forms. They were tapping into the half of the brain that has remained dormant since Homer. The subjective, irrational and authoritative god.

take the hegel pill

>>17046901
Some of it, not all of it though.

bamp

I need to fix myself

>>17043849
Fake and gay. The west is in decline, I believe this is the Chinese century

Lol I had a "I'm going insane" moment for a few days earlier this week. I kept failing to find anything that connected me to where I lived or who I was, other than having this globalised, unfiltered social media access, which is dominated by posts that say almost nothing and are like a conversation between two children. It's addicting and unironically gives you ADHD, or makes your retarded and it doesn't benefit your life at all. It's like crack or something, no benefit but a severe addiction

Along with the increasing prevalence of technology in our lives, the continuous overreach of government into our lives, mass-immigration making the country inherently more globalised, the breakdown of traditional family values (in part due the to neoliberalism of the past 2/3 decades), the breakdown of local community and nothing to do because of coronavirus, its all very depressing. It's like one big blackpill.

>>17050129
This is what I realized, and yet I'm still here, I don't know how to leave, I feel this insane compulsion, and everyone else is doing it

I feel like I'm going mad, or is everyone else mad, I don't know

>>17032935
>>Unplug from the internet entirely. Actually talk to people. Not small talk. Actually talk to them. Take a hike. Start a hobby where you work with your hands.
>Leave the cave. Enjoy what you’ve been given
women are mistake

>>17032897
Go outside. Talk to people.

>>17050159
Tbh what usually fixes my worry is spending time with friends and family. Can't do that atm because do wuflu. I understand how the shut-in r9k retard feels now

Obviously my worries are always there , but it prevents me going full schizo mode.

>>17050129
>>17050159
But how else would you get this wealth of information and recommended readings, in a place other than the internet? How would over 70 people be able to come together like this and have a conversation about the way we live? The usefulness, knowledge, and conversation you can have on the internet are the only things keeping me here. If there was somewhere else to get this kind of knowledge and conversation, I don't think anyone with any shred of intelligence would be on here. Is there any alternative or any book recs? How do we reconcile the usefulness of the internet with the corrupt and addictive nature that pervades it and those who use it?

>>17050280
You'd go to a library and talk to someone intelligent

>>17050280
You don't need it, retard. If Saint Augustine could do what he did >1500 years ago, you can do it. Remember that this "wealth of information" is mostly useless, and if you were somehow limited by a library you'd simply find other stuff to read about.

>How would over 70 people be able to come together like this and have a conversation about the way we live?
Do you think people needed the internet to convene and talk?

>How do we reconcile the usefulness of the internet with the corrupt and addictive nature that pervades it and those who use it?
You need something better to do than being here. We're all trying to do this, bro, yet we keep coming back.

I wonder if I'm content with the spectacle

>>17050350
When I’m not on 4chan actively conversing, I’m either on some other Chan, or I spend the other half of my internet time on 4chan archivers, expertly filtering and plugging keywords to read posts from the early 2000s. There really is no way out

>>17050507
Why though?

>>17050507
>early 2000s archives
Those exist? I thought most of them started in the early 2010s.

>>17050507

damn bro, this does not sound like fun. its important to suppliment reading and information intake with periods of rest reflection. i find i get so much more out of it when i do.

>>17046901
>religion is part of the spectacle...
We are getting to levels of "up our own ass" never thought possible here.

Is that a... A SPECTACLE?

AHHHHHHHHHHHH OH GOD I'M LOSING MY MIND I'M GOING INSANE AHHHHHHHHHHH

>>17050488
I pretty much am. Fuck real life. I'd rather watch thousands of movies, talk about irrelevant actors and immerse myself in pop culture than deal with this terrible existence. And I also don't think that existence outside of the current system is that much more bearable.
Although now that I think about it, I do hate it when escapism becomes too formulaic and soulless, which is what happens when culture is not the dream vision of an artist which I can escape in but a focus group tested money driven, product.
I guess I am all for the spectacle, but only the good kind.

>>17050544
Ah my bad, I don’t think I went down to early 2000s, maybe 2008

add How to do Nothing

read that on some other anon's rec. she's a drumpf hater and can't help but mention him in the book but it gives the book a certain charm and it reminds you that this isn't a treatise, or even a stepwise self help book, but rather an older type of book where you simply follow the authors fancy, and have to take the work in whole.

i feel like if she read Ellul she would have been better able to pinpoint what she's getting at...it's much easier to say "our entire lives have been technicized, do things without consideration for technique (efficiency, optimization, systemization, etc)" but her meandering is valuable and interesting itself so I'm glad she wasn't able to boil it all down so easily.

>>17050812
Based

>>17050812
Based contented loser. You're one of the good people out there. You're just missing the point, though. The chart isn't making a simple anti-Disney point.

>>17051500
>How to do Nothing
Oh that looks interesting. Kinda like the age of surveillance capitalism?

>needing books to tell you that mass media is retarded and maybe you should call your parents
NGMI.

>>17052319
Know your enemy.

>>17051500
This book is terrible, sorry but true.

>>17053010
what didn't you like about, anan?

>>17052319
It's more than that

>>17050507
Remove yourself from the internet for 15 days.

Study the blade and you will be able to keep the spectacle at bay.

>>17046901
Religion precedes the spectacle, though its modern institutions may have been assimilated into it. nonetheless, religion still does and always will have the potential for elucidating primordial truths