I would highly recommend the book Elementary Principles of Philosophy by Georges Politzer which you can find for free on the Foreign Languages Press website under foundations. It is an introduction written for a general audience that will give you a solid base from which to approach other philosophical texts. I'd also really recommend getting a solid grasp of dialectical and historical materialism before trying to dive into other philosophies. Marx laid out the foundations of a scientific approach to understanding the world in all of its aspects. If you understand how to analyze things through a Marxist lens you will be able to cut through a lot of bourgeoise, metaphysical, idealist etc. philosophy which is interesting historically but otherwise useless, or even harmful, if used as a basis for practice.

He says in the beginning that in building the USSR Stalin shouldn't be idolized or mystified as a great man but then proceeds to lay the post-war failures directly at his feet. If he really thinks that the communist party became bourgeoise because they didn't want "real jobs" then that is an implicit statement that the vangaurd party is always doomed to fail to lead the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I don't want to get into the habit of psychoanalyzing people but, if we accept that history is as much a reflection of the present as a record of the past, I'd say that alternative histories such as this are more a reflection of their author than the material conditions at the time. Matt is bourg-ified and doesn't want to work a "real job" and is projecting his anxieties about his own material conditions onto a totally different circumstance.

Do you have any sources on the cultural revolution and the renunciation of GR? I remember reading that in the Three Body Problem but honestly just assumed it was mostly BS. I can see how having a poor understanding of DM could lead to an idealist view in which dogmatic adherence to DM places it before scientific knowledge/understanding of matter. I don't think I fully understand how GR is incompatible with DM but I also got a D in that class lol

I don't mean to imply that somehow dialectical materialism will find a theory of everything. What I am wondering is how, if at all, does our current understanding of nature modify our understanding of dialectical materialism. Both QM/QED and GR are highly predictive theories and we have been able to use the models (however inaccurate) to make material advances in scientific knowledge. Saying that they are in disagreement and so tell us nothing about dialectical materialism seems idk lazy? Like Newtonian mechanics also has its limitations but the advances made there did relate to the conception of materialism at the time. Materialist philosophers decomposed everything into series of machines that produced motion but were essentially static in nature since their motion would eventually circle back and produce the same result. At that time the concept of matter and energy were separate but now we know that they are fundamentally inseparable from each other, and we have harnessed this knowledge to devastating result.

I guess my time frame should have been extended more than 50 years, but basically from my view "modern" physics requires a modern evaluation of dialectical materialism. From Engels Feuerbach "With each epoch-making discovery even in the sphere of natural science, it [materialism] has to change its form..." So then the question is whether advances in QED and GR are "epoch-making" or is dialectical materialism stalled in the early 20th century?

Thanks for the recommendations! I have not read any of those works actually, I am very new to philosophical studies having read the work mentioned above, Stalin's dialectical and historical materialism, and a mishmash of other things mostly related to the climate or politics. I have a degree in chemistry and physics though which is why I was thinking about these things. The philosophy of science is sorely lacking in university level science programs, but I doubt they would handle them well anyways.

Thanks for the recommendations!

From my understanding dialectical materialism has to be subordinated to our understanding of science. The two are linked and develop together. In the 18th century materialism was mechanical, and therefore metaphysical, because the science of mechanics was our most powerful predictive tool. This created problems in philosophy with people like Descartes theorizing that animals (and humans by extension) were basically just an amalgamation of simple machines.

A materialist point of view requires that philosophy be subordinated to our understanding of the nature of matter, energy, and motion since it is from these understandings that we shape our societies, or at least lay the foundation.

Thank you comrade! I'll have to give this a thorough listen sometime soon

Based on what I've read dialectical materialism is more a philosophy of understanding the world. Materialism is the belief that matter exists independent of thought and that we can know the world as it is and not just as sense impressions. Dialectics is the acknowledgement that all matter and energy is in constant motion and transformative processes. They extend beyond the realm of the political thought, but I do agree that Marxism is mainly interested in how the method is applied to society.

I guess my question is not about how can we use dialectical materialism to interpret elementary particles/forces but the opposite. How does our understanding of these systems change our understanding of dialectical materialism? Maybe it doesn't but the most recent discussion of it I had found before posting this was Lenin's empirio-criticism and he was talking about the ether lol

No worries comrade I didn't see it as lashing out! I also want to make it clear that I'm not trying to convert you or anything haha you just seem genuinely curious about the practice and I wanted to try and clarify a few points/share some of my own experiences. If you think that this is something that you want to pursue more I'd highly recommend trying to find a meditation center near you. They are usually run by lay practitioners and the dharma talks should be free. Learning from more experienced people can help you overcome some of the common roadblocks that we all face and even if you don't really like it you might make a new friend. I met my partner of 2 years at a meditation center and she has been the best thing to happen in my life!

My point about Nirvana was that I think it could be useful to shift the framework of your thinking away from the "ultimate goal" and towards the goal of "how can I find peace in the present moment" You've said before that it is difficult for you to not follow something to its logical conclusion, but Buddhism is not a philosophy it is a practice. A cello player might hold in mind their aspiration to play like Yo-Yo Ma but they need to learn a lot before they can really start to dive into his work! Similarly, it can be useful to hold the idea of enlightenment in mind but we need a lot of first-hand experience before we can truly grasp the meaning of Nirvana.

You have it exactly right when you ask whether the goal should be to mediate and reign in emotions! My question to you is how can you tell if something causes more good than harm? In Buddhism there are three general categories of feeling. There are feelings that are unpleasant, feelings that are neutral, and feelings that are pleasant. But these feelings are always interconnected you cannot have one without the others! Think about when you have a toothache, it is a cause of suffering. If you can go to the dentist and have it fixed that is a cause of joy but it fades fast. How often do you stop and think about your teeth when they are not hurting? Everyday our teeth do so much for us but we hardly notice. Neutral feelings are often very subtle and overlooked even if they are the cause of much joy in our lives! The practice of mindfulness helps us connect with these feelings and transform them into joy and peace. Now think of a child who is eating some candy, it is a pleasant experience but often they will eat too much and get sick which is unpleasant. If we learn to practice mindfully we can eat a piece of candy, and recognizing the the pleasant feeling is temporary, fully enjoy that piece! The neutral feeling here could be something like eating plain rice. How often have you had rice and really tasted the full flavor of the rice alone? Next time you eat rice, try and eat just a mouthful and really chew it for a while. As our teeth and saliva break the rice down the subtle flavor evolves and it can be quite pleasant!

Something else that I've noticed is that you seem to hold in you the idea that Buddhism teaches us to accept feelings/experiences and do nothing and that it is simultaneously too much effort. The Buddha taught ways to take our experiences/feelings and transform them so that we do not suffer from them. On the outside this may look like nothing but there is a very real transformation that we can create and through this transformation we can better decide how to act.

One of the keys to successfully being able to practice meditation is to not be too hard on ourselves! We aren't monks so we don't need to renounce all worldly pleasures and modern life throws a million challenges at us daily. You don't have to strive for perfection. The Buddha's teachings are like following the north star. The goal is to travel north not to reach the star! Something that a teacher of mine once said was that we should try and hold ourselves with more compassion. If you think about meditation during the day notice that aspiration and try to smile to yourself. If you notice that you think about it a lot during the week try to stop and take a single mindful breath, really feel the in breath and the out breath. Don't worry if you only remember to do it 1/10 times, if you do it 1/10 times consistently enough then it will transform into 2/10 then 5/10 then 10/10! Just like with weight training we need to start with what we are able to do and slowly work our way up. You may also like to try sitting meditation or walking meditation. Even if it is just for 5 minutes a week if you really practice I know that you will start to see some benefits!

I think you have some misconceptions about what Buddhism is and what the goals of Buddhism are. You said that you've read some on this topic, would you mind sharing what sources you've read from?

In this sutta the monk Māluṅkyaputta approaches the Buddha and demands that he answer a series of metaphysical questions. He wants to know whether the universe is finite or infinite, whether the soul and the body are the same or different, etc. The Buddha refuses to answer these questions though and instead says that he never promised answers to those questions, only a path to liberation from the karmic cycle. In what I think is the most illuminating part of the text, the Buddha says that asking such questions is like someone being struck by an arrow and refusing to have it removed until they know who shot the bow, who were their parents, who made the bow, who fletched the arrow, etc. Much like surgery and medicine, Buddhism is not a philosophy it is a practice. If you don't practice you can not grasp the true meaning even if you read every book ever written on the subject.

I want to try and point out a few of the misconceptions that I think you have expressed or I have seen expressed in the comments. The first and maybe the most important is that of the Four Noble Truths. A lot of people in the West say that the First Noble Truth is that "Life is suffering" but this is not a good transmission. Something closer to the original intent would be "In life there is suffering" the key difference is that the second definition does not imply that the whole of existence is constant suffering. All together the Four Noble Truths could be stated as:

1. In life there is suffering
2. There is a path that leads to suffering
3. In life there is joy/peace
4. There is a path that leads to joy/peace

The path that leads to peace is the Noble Eightfold Path and it lays out direct steps that one can take to lead them forward on the path towards joy/peace. Together, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path make up the core of Buddhist teachings.

Now, to your point about being a centrist. In fact, this is also present in the Buddha's teachings and there is another sutta you may enjoy but I'll have to link it later. In the sutta there is a young boy who plays a stringed instrument (I forget the name!) beautifully but after meeting the Buddha he is so inspired that he takes the vows of a monk. In an effort to improve as fast as he can he goes off into the woods alone and promises to not come back until he is enlightened. After a day or two the Buddha goes searching for the boy and he takes with him the boys old instrument. Before finding the boy the Buddha stops and detunes the strings so that they no longer have any tension. When he finds the boy he asks him to play a song on the instrument but the boy says that it is impossible with the strings so loose. So, the Buddha tightens them until they are almost at their breaking point but the boy points out that this could never work either. He hands the instrument to the boy who tunes it properly and plays a wonderful melody. When he is finished the Buddha says to him "See, we are just like this instrument. If we go too far in the direction of desire or too far in the direction renunciation we can not mindfully operate." This is the Middle Way.

You seem to think that Buddhism advocates a renunciation of all worldly pleasure but this is not true. Renunciation is an important part of practice and is practiced to different extents among lay people and monks, but it does not mean a renunciation of everything. An interesting experiment you might try is to pick something from your everyday life and choose not to use it for a day or maybe even a week. It may be coffee, or tv, or dairy, or a social media app, maybe this website. Observe how your body and mind react to this. In most cases it will be negative because your mind and body are clinging to the sensory stimulation that they are used to, but if you can stick it out for long enough you may discover that there are many positives too. As a personal example, I have recently decided that I didn't want to constantly be listening to music or podcasts and at first I felt really fucking bored. Doing dishes, cooking, cleaning the house all became that much worse and I noticed myself reaching for my phone a lot. But after a while those restless feelings simmered down and I began noticing things that I hadn't before. How I hold my body when I am sweeping the floors and the way my muscles move. The flow of my breathe when I am typing at my computer and the way it makes my eyes hurt if I spend too much time on it! You may want to give it a try sometime! By removing certain pleasures we can open up space for other pleasures that connect us more to our bodies and the present moment to exist.

The next point of misunderstanding is that Buddhism is about stopping all feelings. This is actually the opposite of the truth! The Buddha always taught how to get in touch with our feelings, how to observe their impermanence which is their true nature. The practice of Buddhism is the practice of allowing our feelings to arise without acting impulsively on them. When you love someone you aren't literally feeling the emotion of love at all times. The feeling arises in you do to causes and conditions such as seeing or hearing something that reminds you of them. When you are not thinking of them you are not "feeling" love but you most likely would never say that in those moments you don't love them. In the moments that love does arise in you of course you can enjoy it! The key is to not be overtaken by it and to know that the feeling is temporary and lasts only as long as the causes and conditions do.

I know you said that eastern philosophy doesn't appeal to you so this is only for if you want to give it another try! I think you should try to be more curious about the practical steps you could take to implement the Buddhist teachings. Talking about Nirvana at this stage would be like if someone who never held a cello before picked one up and expected to play like Yo-Yo Ma! I would highly recommend the book "The Mind Illuminated" for a secular and very neuroscience heavy introduction to meditation practice. Also, Plum Village on Youtube has a ton of free Dharma talks and guided meditations which is where I learned a lot about Buddhist practice. And if you want to talk more I would love to! Buddhism was actually a major influence on me in developing my political ideology and it helped lead me away from the liberal/capitalist mindset.

When I first was introduced to buddhism I was in a pretty bad place, I think it was when the climate report came out and everything felt meaningless and my death seemed just around the corner. In an old bookstore I found the book Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh and I learned about loving-kindness meditation. Before that I always thought meditation, and buddhism by extension, was silently staring at a wall, focusing your mind until you didn't feel anything, and really cutting yourself off from life. The practice of loving-kindness helped to open my understanding and crack that shell of cynicism that I had previously used to protect myself. This practice was enough to help me crawl through those dark times.

Life still feels meaningless sometimes, its still hard, sometimes the feelings of helplessness and despair still crop up but now I just have more tools for handling those feelings. It isn't easy to sit with unpleasant feelings, but sometimes acknowledging them can really help. If I feel anxious sometimes I'll say to myself "I feel anxiety arising. Hello my anxiety I am here for you, I will help take care of you." Sometimes just that is enough for my body to relax and my mind to calm. Maybe something like that would work for you and maybe not, but I believe that you can find some practice that does feel right for you!

I think the first thing to consider is that approaching Buddhism as philosophy may not lead to fruitful insight. I was introduced to Buddhism through the works of Thich Nhat Hanh and one of the most profound things I learned from his writings was that Buddhism is something we have to practice in order to understand. I like to think I'm sorta knowledgeable on the topic but not enough to try and lay out any basic teachings in this moment. Some books/sources that have really helped guide me are Plum village (they have a free app that is really great!) and the Mind Illuminated (neuroscience based meditation guide).

If you are really interested in understanding Buddhism then I'd recommend starting out slow with a form of meditation practice that you find compelling (sitting, walking, chanting, loving-kindness). Try and take it easy on yourself! Even the fact that you are investigating these feelings and searching for answers is a beautiful thing, whether or not you feel called to practice Buddhism or not!

wtf this is cool as hell

观音 (Guanyin, Avalokiteshvara) is one of the most revered Bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism and is usually depicted as female or sometimes gender neutral because she can take many forms. According to the Lotus Sutra she is one who hears all suffering and vowed to practice in order to end the suffering of all beings and guide them to the Pure Land called Sukhāvatī which is the realm of the Buddha Amitabha. She is also an important character in the Journey to the West which is one of the most famous Chinese folk tales/books!

I think that maybe her point was that the increasing demand for vegetarian "meat" doesn't decrease demand for real meat. Eventually they will have to transition because the current market production is unsustainable, but they won't do it because it is the right thing to do, they'll do it because meat production becomes unprofitable.

This article gives a decent discussion of why the US really dropped the bomb. https://www.liberationnews.org/u-s-dropped-nuclear-bombs-hiroshima-nagasaki/

It was ultimately to scare off the USSR and, maybe to some extent, to get revenge for Pearl Harbor. If you think those reasons justify the mass killing of around 200,000 people then idk what to say. It seems clear, and widely accepted among historians who are outside of the neoliberal/conservative circle, that the USA did not need to drop the bomb

this is a spot on analysis. If something doesn't change soon this movements going nowhere and getting nothing accomplished while doing it!

As someone who is in the movement I can confirm that the national leadership are careerists. For over two weeks they have refused to stand in solidarity with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen despite calls from inside and outside of the movement. https://twitter.com/ChoctawFreedmen

They are afraid that it will hurt Deb Halaand's chances of being selected for Secretary of the Interior. It just doesn't make sense... she isn't getting elected, if Biden wants to choose her he will and if he doesn't he won't. They are basically saying "wait til Biden has his say, then we can stand with you!" #BlackLivesMatter(Conditionally)

Their concept of power is to get progressives elected by phonebanking and performative protests, and I think that TossedAccount is totally spot on that they are in a position to be co-opted by the capitalists, assuming they haven't already. They frequently trot out black revolutionaries like Malcom X and Fred Hampton but the work that they want volunteers to do is pointless. It definitely serves to draw in people who are discontent and have revolutionary energy, and to divert that energy into working for the Democratic party.

I've made a couple of posts about how I am working with a small (but growing fast) group of people who are similarly upset by the direction the movement is going to try and sway it in a left-ward direction. I'm gonna give it like one or two more months before moving on, but we are already causing them some problems and getting the high-level leaders/founders involved. I don't want to give up because I really think that young people are ready to embody revolutionary ideas and they have a pretty large base to build from, but damn they are making it difficult.