Q: So, we should just let it crash and burn down, pick up the pieces and start over?
A: Yes, with the focus on the big war on this extreme capitalism. I couldn’t vote, but I was hoping Sarah Palin won last time in the US elections. I’m hoping Donald Trump wins this year’s election. For the reason that it will fuck up that country so much faster then if a less bad President wins. Our whole world is just so focused on money, money, money. That’s the biggest problem. That’s why everything fucks up. That’s the target we have to fix. We need to make sure that we are going to get a different focus in life.
Hopefully technology will give us robots that will take away all the jobs, which will cause like a massive worldwide unemployment; somewhat like 60 percent. People will be so unhappy. That would be great, because then you can finally see capitalism crashing so hard. There is going to be a lot of fear, lost blood, and lost lives to get to that point, but I think that’s the only positive thing I see, that we are going to have a total system collapse in the future. Hopefully as quick as possible. I would rather be 50 then be like 85 when the system is crashing.

I've encountered similar arguments to this throughout anarchist and other leftist cultural political groups and I always find them so deaf to the realities of people throughout the world. It's the leftist version of "let them eat cake". I doubt that many arab american muslims would share this view. It's all fine and well to encourage an apocalyptic economic and political crash when you think that your chances of surviving it are good, but tell the person receiving SNAP or TANF or living in section 8 housing that you want politicians to be elected who want to cut those programs. Tell women that you want politicians to be elected who will appoint supreme court justices likely to reverse roe v wade. Tell the person whose family is in Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan or Yemen or Syria or Lebanon or Palestine or Pakistan that you want a politician to be elected who will escalate bombing and military actions in those countries. Tell the person whose parents are undocumented that you want a politician to be elected who has publicly advocated for a separation wall between the US and Mexico and has dog-whistled on countless occasions referring to immigrants from mexico, central and south america as rapists.

I don't think that things are working out well for the globe (and for the internet) and I agree that rapacious capitalism is one of the primary forces of misery and hardship and pain across the world. Peter Sunde's analysis, while gloomy and lacking in any real solutions, is pretty spot on. But to suggest that the only way forwards is to embrace an inevitable catastrophe that will disproportionately affect the already disempowered, disenfranchised, and oppressed is to give up on humanity. If people like Peter Sunde welcome the apocalypse in this way, they will certainly not be looked kindly upon by survivors who disproportionately saw their friends, family, and loved ones perish in the revolutionary fires. We all have a duty - even when we feel the most gloom, when we want to watch the world burn - to suppress those more desperate feelings and emotions, imagine the world as a better place, and build the future we believe in.

Which is not even to mention that the logic of the argument is just unsound. Trump's most recognizable historical predecessors are the opportunists in the nazi party who seized upon themes of economic populism and xenophobia to build the most terrifying right wing military government known to history. His election does not logically lead to a revolution in which things get better. It may be one possible outcome, but it's one of many, most of which lead to a future, the dismal nature of which we can only begin to comprehend.

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 5:21 PM, Mitar <mitar@tnode.com> wrote:
Hi!

A great read:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/pirate-bay-founder-peter-sunde-i-have-given-up


Mitar

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