Yeah. In middle school I was gonna be an NBA player 😂

I read all of almost all of David Graeber’s books, The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid by Pyotr Kropotkin, and Anarchism Works and The Solutions are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos.

But when I got to Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman, it really moved me in a different way. Totally worth checking out.

(It also led me to read Civil Disobedience by Thoreau and Self-Reliance by Emerson – both worth reading before Goldman because she references them a few times)

Thank you for the recs. Part of the reason I wasn’t more specific is because, in terms of retro games, I have no idea of what I like since I haven’t really played any. Another part is that I want to know what you, the people, think holds up in 2025. And another part, I’m trying to keep my taste open – my first exposure to video games was GameBoy games, then Halo on PC, then having an Xbox 360 and playing popular action-y games. Later I’d find a taste for action RPGs (after much picking up and putting down), and only in the last few years have I expanded that to more…traditional? slower, I guess…RPGs like BG3 and Disco Elysium…expanding to puzzle games, sidescrollers, bullethells. I know they’re a lot different but I guess my point is, at one point, I found it hard to get into them, but over time I was able to figure them out and have fun. Still have never played a JRPG, so that’s on the horizon for me. I enjoy when things “click” in my brain, and if it takes a long time, that’s okay.

Some games that I’ve loved over my 25 or so years of consciousness:

My all time fav is Outer Wilds

RDR2

Disco Elysium

Balatro

Alan Wake 2

I’ll always have a soft spot for Halo 1-Reach

Portal 1 and 2

Hades

Risk of Rain 2

Doom 2016

Batman: Arkham City

Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, Sekiro

Dave the Diver

Vampire Survivors

INSIDE

(noticing none of these are retro games so idk if this is even helpful)

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Baldur’s Gate 3

Dredge was cool but I didn’t finish it

Witcher 3

Baba is You

Factorio was too addicting so I had to stop because it started feeling like work

GTA V because I enjoyed the satire

I have 2k+ hours in Rocket League since its the only game I can play while focusing on an audiobook or podcast or album.

Sounds pretentious because it is, but I like “heady” stuff, in games-terms I think that translates to things that expand my conception of what a game is and what it can do, or something that challenges me in a new way. But yeah, that’s a long winded explanation of why I wasn’t more specific regarding my taste.

best phone ever. miss that back fingerprint sensor

Idk about curated playlists but I use soulseek to share files with my friends.

I like the same genres, I can recommend you some albums I’ve been liking if you want

Who’s posting this Israeli propaganda

Hey, no need to apologize! I totally get it.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, even with your cynicism :) I agree, any altruistic behavior fits within this context of evolutionary behavior and is ultimately driven by the need for individuals to survive long enough to reproductive age. To be honest, I’m actually not sure where we disagree. I think, maybe, we are interpreting Kropotkin differently. To continue with the idea about horses – I think the problem with your posit (horses protecting their young) is that it isn’t only the horses who have offspring who form the circle, but also horses who don’t have offspring. This might sound like I’m saying, “See, since even the horses that do not have offspring join the protective ring, we see that altruism occurs in nature,” but as you pointed out, this too is an evolutionarily driven behavior. It’s not necessarily selfish in the eyes of the individual (I don’t think), but it’s an urge, driven by generations and generations of horses who exist on a spectrum from least social (do not participate in the circle) to most social (participate in the circle, and many more social activities), in which those horses that are more socially participative are more likely to reach adulthood and reproduction.

I can’t remember if Kropotkin addresses the violence that happens in the natural world, but I’m pretty sure he reconciles it. I don’t think he outright denies competition in Mutual Aid, even though I can see how you come to that conclusion with that passage. I agree with you, it is easy to look at opposing examples of competition rather than cooperation in the natural world, even among the same species. Especially when it comes down to resource scarcity – then you start seeing less cooperative behavior. I think Kropotkin’s point is not to deny that competition exists, but to push against the idea that that is the only thing that exists. The way I understand it, he was writing in a post-Darwin time, when the scientific community was taking Darwin’s ideas and applying them to society with Social Darwinism – survival of the fittest not only in nature but in social life, as well. So instead of a “noble savage” kinda idea, where Kropotkin is saying “everything in nature is peaches and roses,” he is more saying, “look at all this cooperation in nature that is being ignored by the ‘survival of the fittest’ camp.” Anyways, that’s how I read the book – but it’s not really captured in that single quote.

Funnily enough, your exact example with ants is one Kropotkin uses in Mutual Aid! He basically goes along the evolutionary ladder, from least complex organisms to most (although, beginning with insects I’m pretty sure) and shows the cooperation within various species, not to deny the existence of competition, but to show that it isn’t the only, or even the most, important force in evolution.

I guess my one last point is illustrated like this: if competition for resources were the primary force driving evolution, wouldn’t we see a continuing trend of individuals in a species with more and more physical strength, brutishness, competitive nature, and rejection of cooperation? In other words, wouldn’t we see a phasing out of cooperative behavior in favor of individual antagonisms and competition for resources? Here I’m thinking of my house cats – we’re in the process of introducing them, at the moment, and managing their anxieties about the other. Even though Bella is very territorial, each day she is showing more and more signs of acceptance of Suzie – through cat language of course – slow blinking, flopping on her side, chirping when she walks up to her. If competition where the only, or the most important driver of evolution, I’m not sure we would see this kind of behavior from Bella – I’m not even sure these cat-signs of flopping slow-blinking, chirping, would exist! Of course, they occur with more frequency as she slowly realizes resources are not scarce, that she can coexist with this other cat Suzie, and that she’ll get treats each time she has a positive interaction ;)

Anyways, thank you for your thoughtful reply. I’m curious to hear what you think, it’s been fun chatting. I think even if you’re skeptical of Kropotkin from that passage, it’s still worth reading the book in whole. You probably wouldn’t find that you agree with everything, or even most, but at the very least, I think it’d be an interesting insight into how a person thought post-Darwin, pre-WW1.

I don’t really agree, but I do understand where you’re coming from. I do think you’re right in pointing out that all these behaviors give the individual a more likely chance to survive, but I also think that is exactly Kropotkin’s point. That these social behaviors were naturally selected, the individuals who displayed them were more likely to survive.

But where I disagree is in the fact that the individuals themselves aren’t consciously thinking, “this is what will give me, an individual, the best chance to survive.” You see what I mean? For example, the horses forming a circle around the young to defend from wolves – they’re not thinking, “I need to protect myself.” They have an instinct to protect the young, so the young go in the center. If an adult were purely individualistic, it would enter the circle, itself, right? Or if my neighbors house is on fire, what’s most advantageous for me as an individual is to run away, but I feel compelled to yell for help. Or kittens – wouldn’t they be better off as individuals if they just killed off their siblings, so that they could have a full mouth? But no, being raised with other young kittens allows them to learn to hunt through play, to groom themselves, and to learn socialization tactics and reading body language, which further increases their chances of survival when encountering other cats as adults.

So yeah, you’re totally right in a sense, animals act in these ways because their ancestors passed on the genes that predisposed them to acting this way, and those behaviors make them more likely to survive because they (the behaviors) made their ancestors more likely to survive. See what I’m getting at? Kropotkin’s point is that it is evolutionarily advantageous to engage in social activity and cooperation.

I totally buy it, personally. You ever think about why we blush involuntarily? Or why we feel so wretched when we think we haven’t been accepted socially? Why it feels good to just help someone, or when we wince when we see someone else in pain? We’re social animals, built to socialize. I mean, we all speak a language! We naturally are compelled to talk baby-talk at babies. We touch each other, even in platonic, non sexual ways. These social behaviors are rewarded because they helped us survive, yes, but we don’t think about them as actions we take to increase our chance of survival. We do them because they feel good, because they’re supposed to.

Thanks unruffled. That passage from Kropotkin really moved me when I first read it. atro really struggled with rule 1. Hope your day goes good!

Hey LibertyLiz. Nothing to add, just wanted to say hi. I enjoy seeing your name pop up spitting truth. Hope you’re doing good!

What a dick-ass comment. I’m not trying to dunk on you dude. If you don’t wanna read more about the thing you yourself are professing (humans inherently bad), where that idea got popularized, and people who have refuted it throughout history, you don’t have to. But I find it interesting and just wanted to give you a reading suggestion. Christ.

You should check out mutual aid by pyotr kropotkin. Sure, we have several thousand years of history of the carnage of states and individuals. Thing is, humans have existed for over 100,000 years – there is a lot missing about what our “natural” state is. Archaeological and anthropological evidence show that human societies exist on a wide spectrum of peaceful --> violent, stateless --> hierarchical.

Your implication that humans are inherently bad, cruel, competing for resources, etc. is a vestige of theory from Thomas Hobbes, connected to social darwinism, that completely ignores the observed behavior of a vast amount of animal and insect species, wherein individuals aid one another out of no apparent immediate benefit to themselves.

A somewhat famous passage from kropotkin to illustrate:

[…] to reduce animal sociability to love and sympathy means to reduce its generality and its importance, just as human ethics based upon love and personal sympathy only have contributed to narrow the comprehension of the moral feeling as a whole. It is not love to my neighbour — whom I often do not know at all — which induces me to seize a pail of water and to rush towards his house when I see it on fire; it is a far wider, even though more vague feeling or instinct of human solidarity and sociability which moves me. So it is also with animals. It is not love, and not even sympathy (understood in its proper sense) which induces a herd of ruminants or of horses to form a ring in order to resist an attack of wolves; not love which induces wolves to form a pack for hunting; not love which induces kittens or lambs to play, or a dozen of species of young birds to spend their days together in the autumn; and it is neither love nor personal sympathy which induces many thousand fallow-deer scattered over a territory as large as France to form into a score of separate herds, all marching towards a given spot, in order to cross there a river. It is a feeling infinitely wider than love or personal sympathy — an instinct that has been slowly developed among animals and men in the course of an extremely long evolution, and which has taught animals and men alike the force they can borrow from the practice of mutual aid and support, and the joys they can find in social life.

This isn’t to endorse primitivism, or Rousseau’s state of nature. I’m not sure I would even say “humans are innately good,” necessarily. Clearly, we have the potential for evil. But the idea that capitalist competition, social darwinism, humans reveling in their own private benefit, greed, and cruelty, is natural, is both played out and nonsensical.

edit: Source https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution

If you’re on the fence about watching this in its entirety, I encourage you to give it a shot. The summary below is totally accurate re: “the argument” (thank you, btw, Mr. Bucket) but it doesn’t really do the video justice. It’s actually funny and entertaining. I was kinda skeptical. I am chronically predisposed to overanalyzing “will this be worth my time?” regarding video essays. Watching it at 2x speed made it quicker and funnier for me. Totally worth it.

Do you like my hat

I hear what you’re saying, but an upper-class leftist is really just a right-wing neoliberal (perhaps socially left, but still pro capital/ pro worker exploitation). Leftism doesn’t exist in the US outside of Bernie Sanders and maybe AOC.

I’m not sure we know enough about Luigi’s politics to call him leftist. Didn’t he praise silicon valley execs? Sure, he may have united leftists (anti capitalists) and the working class. But the working class, itself, is right wing in the US. They don’t have class consciousness. There are hints that it remains, like how many Trumpies also voted for AOC, or how many like Bernie. But if they’re voting along party lines, they often do so against their own interests.

An upper class rightist might claim they’re on the side of workers, but they do so while reaching into their pockets and stealing a chunk of the value that they create. Then they reassure those same workers that wealth will somehow trickle down to them.

Edit: There is only really truth to this meme if you treat “left vs right” in the American sense of the words, or just replace them with “democrats vs republicans” or “liberals vs conservatives,” none of which are actually leftists in the classical sense.

Democrats vs Republicans would be more accurate imo. OP, it sounds like you’re not using left and right in the classical politcal sense, but in the way these terms are thrown around nowadays, especially in the US – leftism being neoliberalism, and the right being…whatever it is now. Neo-conservativism? Both are right wing ideologies.

quick wikipedia snippet

In modern politics, the term Left typically applies to ideologies and movements to the left of classical liberalism, supporting some degree of democracy in the economic sphere. Today, ideologies such as social liberalism and social democracy are considered to be centre-left, while the Left is typically reserved for movements more critical of capitalism,[9] including the labour movement, socialism, anarchism, communism, Marxism, and syndicalism, each of which rose to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries.

I think of him as astoundingly stupid. But he ain’t dumb.

Have you got any recs? I’ve got a 3080 in my machine atm

I dont really use LLMs so I didn’t even realize there were versions with different weights and stuff. I was using 7b, but found it pretty useless. Pretty sure I’m not going to be able run 32B on my rig. lmao.

guess ill continue being an LLMless pleb.

I’m moving to self host all my streaming stuff. Switching from local-only plex to self hosting all my media (spotify, google photos, LLMs) and tools behind a reverse proxy so i can access outside my home. It’s pretty sweet and a good learning experience using reverse proxies

Edit: Plus fuck these technofeudal lords who enclose access to markets, information, and culture.