Dave Lane  ðŸ‡³ðŸ‡¿Jul 1, 2023
To folks aware of the #TPPA & its less-pronouceable alias #CPTPPA that I regularly cite as a real problem for the world & us here in Aotearoa NZ - the #InvestorStateDisputeServices (#ISDS) terms of the not-at-all #FreeTradeAgreement our gov't has signed us up to... this will help you understand how bad it is: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=xW5dEtjMb-k or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW5dEtjMb-k #CorporateCoup @strypey @DrCuriosity This also explains our gov'ts *love* for #BigTech & snubbing domestic companies.
Show threadStrypeyJul 3, 2023

@lightweight
> Investor State Dispute Services (ISDS) terms of the not-at-all Free Trade Agreement our gov't has signed us up to...this will help you understand how bad it is

When the NatLabs talk about defending the "rules-based international order", this is what they're talking about. China is not exceptional in its economic colonisation of smaller/ weaker countries through "aid". Corporate media is just more honest about it when they do it.

@DrCuriosity

#colonisation #FreeTrade #ISDS

Show threadStrypeyJul 3, 2023

Reading Snowcrash is another aid to understanding where we've been heading since the NeoLiberal coups, and where we might end up if we don't change direction. We need to cooperate on a massive scale to defend and extend democracy (by the broadest possible definition - see David Graeber's book The Democracy Project).

@lightweight
@DrCuriosity

Show threadIsaac FreemanJul 6, 2023
@strypey @lightweight @DrCuriosity Also the sequel _The Diamond Age_, which made the insightful point that a chaotic cyberpunk world isn’t a stable end state to history. People can’t keep living like that indefinitely, so a generation later social hierarchies are reasserted and nationalistic power re-centralised (albeit in many competing non-geographical nations). This is the fascist turn.
Show threadAlixJul 6, 2023

@isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight @DrCuriosity I liked the idea of the phyles in Diamond Age. What about them do you see as fascist?

(Except in the old-style literal sense that people are stronger in groups.)

Show threadIsaac FreemanJul 6, 2023
@alix @strypey @lightweight @DrCuriosity There are a lot of phyles, but the ones we see most detail on in the book are the NeoVictorians and the Confucians. Both focus on bringing order by re-asserting traditional values and hierarchies. There’s some hand-waving about only-the-good-parts, but this is all standard fascist stuff: the right people are back at the top. Both have large out-groups of abandoned people, our which arise Little Nell and the Mouse Army. 1/n
Show threadAlixJul 6, 2023

@isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight @DrCuriosity

Is it fair to say you're describing some of the larger phyles in Diamond Age as having a kind of nostalgia for past glory and restrictive-but-overall-stable social structure that you associate with fascism? That you're not saying all phyles are necessarily fashy, but the bigger ones we saw seemed that way?

It's a good while since I last read it, but I saw a phyle like the Ashanti as a group offering mutual support.

Show threadDr. Curiosity 💻🔬
@alix @isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight
The combination of seemingly rigid hierarchy, retreat into (reimagined) nostalgic values from the height of empire, and a combination of fearful and/or paternalistic attitudes toward out-groups do seem to be pretty common fascistic tropes. Not _solely_ theirs of course, but certainly commonly found together. As we're seeing a little too often these days.
Jul 6, 2023 at 7:58amWeb
Show threadDr. Curiosity 💻🔬Jul 6, 2023
@alix @isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight
You certainly _could_ use those trappings differently, but I think you'd have to underline and provide suitable assurances about the points of difference to ensure people didn't infer different intents from what you were presenting.
Show threadAlixJul 6, 2023

@DrCuriosity @isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight

I wonder how much of this response is because the story spends so much time with the phyles that are more imperialist. Would you say the same if the main focus had been on the Armenians, the Senderos, the Ashanti or whatever the hacker phyle was called? (Are the Drummers a phyle?)

I’m currently pondering whether fascism remains a meaningful term if it can be applied to every society with an empire.

Show threadDr. Curiosity 💻🔬Jul 6, 2023

@alix @isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight
I'm not making commentary on phyles in general, but the Vickies and their described attributes specifically. Though in passing, worth noting that the terms "phyle" and "thete" are implicitly ones of class.

I can't really speak to most of the other phyles as they weren't really described in significant detail.

Best I could tell, the Drummers were a kind of nanotech hivemind. Possibly a phyle of sorts, but porous.

Show threadStrypeyJul 6, 2023

@alix
> whether fascism remains a meaningful term if it can be applied to every society with an empire

Thank you for saying this! The meaning of "fascism" has been stretched to breaking point in recent years (arguably well past it) by overly general use. Mind you, I remember when I was a stroppy young anarcho-punk, and used "Nazi" or "fascist" to describe pretty much anyone I thought was conservative and authoritarian. Pot? Kettle? Maybe ; )

(1/2)

@DrCuriosity @isaacfreeman @lightweight

Show threadStrypeyJul 6, 2023

@alix
Now i'm a crusty old anarcho-punk. I've learned a *lot* more about political history, not to mention the danger of diluting the meanings of important political terms, by using them as discursive tommy guns. Can't deny it was cathartic though.

(2/2)

@DrCuriosity @isaacfreeman @lightweight

Show threadkravietz 🦇Jul 6, 2023

@strypey

George Orwell, writing already in 1944:

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

@alix @DrCuriosity @isaacfreeman @lightweight

Show threadStrypeyJul 9, 2023

@kravietz
> It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless

George Orwell, as always, is right on the money. Any social media warriors who want to retrospectively cancel Orwell for being 'soft on fascism' by saying this, will need reminding that he fought real fascists in Spain (both the native ones and the exotic "left-wing" Stalinist variant). With a *gun*, not a keyboard.

@DrCuriosity @isaacfreeman @alix @lightweight

Show threadStrypeyJul 9, 2023

@kravietz
If pseudo-pomo representationists had as much courage as George Orwell had in his little finger - let alone a fraction of his political insight - we'd all be in a much better situation.

@DrCuriosity @isaacfreeman @alix @lightweight

Show threadIsaac FreemanJul 10, 2023

@strypey @[email protected] @DrCuriosity @alix @lightweight I’m sympathetic to being precise in language, but on balance I come down the other way on this, for a few reasons:

1. Fascism is concerned with power, not consistent policy, so it was hard to pin down a precise definition even in Orwell’s time. Some only count Italian fascism, others include German and Spanish. Japan is sometimes handwaved in. You’ve included Stalin, whom I’d have called history’s foremost antifascist.
1/n

Show threadIsaac FreemanJul 10, 2023
@strypey @DrCuriosity @alix @lightweight
2. Since Orwell’s time I think we’ve developed a greater awareness of the continuity between European fascism and other historical phenomena such as settler colonialism and the American Confederacy.
2/n
Show threadIsaac FreemanJul 10, 2023

@strypey @DrCuriosity @alix @lightweight
3. Organised far right groups often extend their influence by offering deniability to the much larger sphere of fellow travelers who aren’t formal members. This also allows centrists to deny the extent of fascism by defining it too strictly.

Given these, I’m comfortable using the term ‘fascism’ in a broader sense than Orwell. If people in a discussion prefer ‘fascistic’ or ‘totalitarian’ or whatever, I’ll happily follow their lead in that context. 3/3