Bijou Drains
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“ For sport to function as entertainment, athletes must compete for a trophy, which is ultimately a form of wealth. That requirement isn’t compatible with a society based on free access”
I’ve got to be honest Moo, I think what you’ve written is complete nonsense .
The idea that a system of common ownership of the means of production isn’t compatible with the awarding of trophies or mementos is, in my view, ridiculous.
The abolition of private property does not mean the abolition of private property. Socialism wouldn’t entail common ownership of my vinyl collection. Gangs of Socialist zealots will not be charged with prising Tom More’s lived collection of books from his fingers. In the same way they wouldn’t go around the club houses of the local bowls or bridge club ransacking their trophy room and placing them into protective custody lest easily influenced children would be enticed into an illicit competitive game of ludo.
Competitiveness is part of the rich tapestry of human behaviour. That the philosophers of capitalism have raised it to a level of fetishisation does not mean that in a future society people will not enjoy being competitive.
I have no doubt that in a socialist society little lads will still try to see who can piddle highest up the wall, people will still want to be the best chess player, grow the biggest marrows, run the fastest, jump the highest, etc. etc. I for one will still endeavour to win board games.
I also have no doubt that spectator sport will continue to be a big part of our cultural experience. Do you think that people won’t stand astounded at the sporting prowess of others? Or will it be that be huge shutterings put up to watch others compete?
I loved every moment of playing football, are people like me who can’t take part anymore in sport due to age or infirmity to be denied the joy of others doing what I used to enjoy (but doing it much better than I used to)?
I’m really surprised by declared socialists who are so intolerant of and judgemental about others people’s ways of living. As well as the economic freedoms that a socialist society offers surely social and cultural freedom comes along hand in hand.
It reminds me of a friend of mine who was a tattoo artist. He used to say the only difference between people who have tattoos and people who don’t have tattoos, is that most of the people who have tattoos don’t care that other people don’t have tattoos.
So to summarise, Sir Tom. Since 1998 (a period of 28 years) you and or your family have been inconvenienced on three occasions. You anticipate that this evening you will be further inconvenienced by the fact that instead of having 73 free to air channels on TV you will only have the choice of 72 and you might have to wait a little longer for the next episode of Coronation Street.
What about all of the poor buggers that have to put up with you and your Am Dram buddies taking over the pub doing all that pseudo intellectual stuff and pretending that they’re windswept and interesting. Have you ever had a thought about how much your bunch of wannabe luvvies inflict on the good people of your local pub?
It’s not all about you mate.
Yes you can. Loads of non World Cup content on TV, radio, etc. I’m a football fan, who isn’t arsed about international football. I’ve managed to avoid it pretty well, then you can.
I think Shakespeare is massively overrated, but I don’t mind others pretending that they enjoy it, watching Shakespearean plays, laughing at the very weak jokes from his comedies as if they’ve never heard the gag before and kidding themselves that understanding his work makes them somehow intellectually superior. If it gives them joy, so be it.
I can avoid it if I choose to, just like you can avoid the World Cup.
Live and let live, Bonny lad.
To see sport only within the capitalistic context is, in my mind, a mistake. The vast majority of sporting events and sporting activities take place in a much more communalistic and cooperative context. To take example there are 92 professional league teams in the football league system. if you say that of those 92, maybe 30 on average are being paid, that gives 2,762 players. In terms of the 92 teams, there are more that that many teams running within the small metropolitan district I live than that 92.
there are an estimated 15.7 million people who play football regularly in England. For more structured, club-based environments, participation is also substantial. Nationally, there are over 40,000 community clubs and more than 100,000 registered teams across the country.
I played adult football regularly from the age of 18 to the age of 52. Some of the lads I played with are still playing at the age of 65.
The majority of those teams, even those who are considered semi professional or in the higher leagues where players get what is termed “boot money” are generally run and organised by non paid volunteers. The spirit of self help, mutuality and community run through the vast majority of footballing activities.
I’ve found very few footballers who object to people not liking football. I have however found many people who don’t like football who whinge about people who like football. If you don’t like it you are not forced to watch it. I always thought that socialism involved the concept of free expression.
It is a similar story across many sports. Lots and lots of kids have been able to access sport as an alternative to antisocial behaviour, criminality and other difficulties.
In terms of how a future socialist society, who really knows? I would like took think that any future sporting organisation might following a model to the one used by the Gaelic Athletic Association’s (GAA’s) model.
If you want to play Gaelic Football or Hurling, you generally join your local GAA team. The local teams are generally organised geographically so more or less by townland or local parish. They compete on a county wide basis. The wining county teams then complete on a provincial basis, so the four provinces (Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht) have an inter county championship. The Provincial champions then compete to be the All Ireland Club champions.
It is all done on an amateur basis. At the next level the best players from each county are selected to play for the county and they then compete at an inter provincial basis and they can become the provincial champions. there is are All Ireland inter county competitions for both Hurling and Gaelic Football (the Liam McCarthy Trophy and the Sam Maguire trophy), which is really the pinnacle of the sport.
I’m more of a Gaelic Football fan, but I’ve got to say watching top level hurling is incredible. The skill the tactical awareness, the team play, is terrific. The All Ireland Semi finals which were held over the weekend at Croke park was a magnificent spectacle. Fortunately the BBC have started showing Gaelic games on their iplayer system. The final is in a fortnight. If you enjoy sports, I would recommend watching it. (it’s all amateur)
Even still, hardly credible in many ways. Charities and special interest groups profit from exaggeration. Lots of clicks and money is made from cruelty stories. There was a story going the rounds about dogs in Portugal being put on fishing hooks to act as bait for sharks. Turned out to be a whole load of bollards, but the perpetrators of the hoax made millions. “Charitable work” is very often an adjunct to capitalism. Monetarising natural human empathy and understanding to pay the wages of chief execs and charity “nomenklatura”. I generally don’t give anything to charities, not from a spirit of meanness but because I’d rather give what I can give to others directly to them, where I can.
In terms of animal cruelty, I don’t think it is a rising issue, if anything it is falling. Historically bating and killing animals for “sport” was a widespread practice, bear bating, dog fights, cock fighting, bull fighting, fox hunting, badger baiting, etc were common and acceptable practices. Attitudes have changed, however practices have moved underground and again, due to capitalism have been increasingly monetarised.
I worked in Social Work out in the The West of Northumberland in the Cheviots and the edge of the Pennines in the 80’s and 90’s. Most of the hill farmers and sheep farmers despised the hunt. They would come through farms, destroy things, often the hounds would attack sheep dogs and generally cause mayhem to both man and beast. They tolerated them mainly because they were tenant farmers and couldn’t upset the land owning classes. Also the hunt would take any ewes which had died naturally, which happens as part of the life cycle especially in the winter. The cost of hygienically disposing of the animal carcass could have tipped their farm over the edge, so the hunt taking dead animals to feed their hounds was often the difference between eating or not eating.
The farmers knew how to attract and kill a fox which had become a danger to live stock in a very effective and quick way. Foxes that take chickens, etc. are often injured or moving to the end of their lives, often diseased or very ill. At night time they would run a bit of polyurethane foam against a piece of glass which creates a noise which is very similar to a dying rabbit. The older or diseased fox would come out and the fox would be shot very quickly and relatively mercifully. The idea that the whole of the countryside would be over run by foxes if the hunt was stopped, has been demonstrated to be absolute nonsense.
“The only would-be bashers of Rome today are the 100% IRRATIONAL conspiraloons”
Tell that to the good people of Tuam County Galway
I don’t think your numbers actually add up at all.
“billions have watched animal torture online”.
If as you say that billions (i.e. two or more billion people) have been watching animal torture that would mean that at the very least nearly 1 in 4 people of the world’s population of 8.1 billion people are watching animal torture. Taking this even further an estimated 2.2 billion of the world’s population have no access to the internet, leaving approximately 5.9 billion people have access to the internet. This would mean that more than 1/3 of the people who are connected to the internet are watching animal torture. Going further approximately 14% of the world’s population are aged under 8 years old (UNICEF Data). So that figure of 6 billion people would come down to a little less that 5 billion people who are likely to have access to the internet are likely to have the wherewithal to access animal torture due to age. You can reduce that figure even further by introducing the fact that at least 1% of the population have dementia (WHO figures) and the fact that globally it is estimated that approximately 2.2% of the world’s population have either a moderate or profound Learning Disability, i.e according to WHO definitions they have an IQ of less that 49. Add to that the 22% of the world’s population who are either vegetarian or vegan and your (or rather the figures/organisation you quote) are starting to look pretty silly.
Billions of views do not in any way add up to “Billions have watched”
I would have thought that a thinking Socialist would have enough about them to at least question the figures they have been fed through alarmist reporting. It does little for the credibility of our case for socialism when we have members posting such clearly implausible nonsense on our forums
There are lots and lots of websites and supposed charities who are milking the good will of people for their own ends. Perhaps you should read through some of the sites below:
https://www.worldanimalprotection.org.uk/latest/news/fake-rescue-report/
Just doing a little calculation, and I do accept that this is difficult for many reasons as we only were standing one candidate in three candidate wards, however this is one way of calculating things.
Looking at the Brixton North Ward and you add up all of the multiple partys’ leading vote, then add on the votes of single candidates you could argue that this was the equivalent of a first preference vote.
This would mean adding
Labour 1415
Green 1388
Independent 372
Conservative 261
LibDem 215
Reform 189
Socialist 77
TUSC 53Giving a total of 3,970 first preference votes (arguably). That would make the Socialist vote around 2%, which would be very encouraging. I know there are a large number of caveats, but the campaign team need to be congratulated.
It would be interesting to see if any of the voters who voted Socialist had only chosen one candidate. I wonder if any of the team at the election could gauge that kind of information from the count?
After out voting TUSC in Brixton North I was tempted to paraphrase the old Norwegian commentator’s phrase and say “Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Dave Nellist, you boys got a hell of a beating”, but I won’t.
Genuinely though, how can the Trots argue that putting forward the straightforward socialist alternative to capitalism will not attract workers and that workers need to be lead to Socialism by a vanguard party, using reforms as enticements, when we are getting more or at least very similar support as their reformism?
Given the very clear impact on space travel on the physical health of space travellers, perhaps as Socialists, we should be actually encouraging Messers Branson, Musk and Bezos in their space adventures.
Maybe we can even persuade them to combine their efforts so that all three of them travel together in a long and very unhealthy trip as far as possible. I’d actually recommend one so far, that they don’t even make it back to Planet Earth.
“ The root idea traces back to the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when some “genius” proposed that there might be a kind of emergent intelligence in collective betting behavior”
Which is presumably why the bookmakers are all impoverished and the punters are rolling in money.
Sometimes Comrade Cheery Arse’s on going pessimistic posts about the end of the world, actually get me to the point of thinking that the end of the world, would be a blessed relief from having to read his endless posts about the end of the world.
As well as the vital question about how owns AI (as Musk implies AI will possibly become a crucial element of the means of production) there are a number of other issues.
AI may possibly make use of all human knowledge that is available through computerised sources. Human knowledge goes much further than that.
As a simple example, how much of what is held in our party library? Perhaps, at an optimistic guess, about 25% of it. What about oral and other sources of knowledge, how much lived experience is held on the internet? There are many other examples.
Not only does this lead to huge gaps in terms of AI’s data, it also biases the data it uses due to the fact that what is digitized tends to be information that is useful to the ruling class and is dominated by those who have the financial and technological wherewithal to digitise their information.
Another issue with AI is that it will always give you an answer, even if it has no information. I have never found an AI system that can respond “to be honest mate, I haven’t got a clue”. So, a bit like a Reform Party Spokesperson, AI just makes shit up.
I have a couple of mates who are in the RCP. Got to know them from being in political circles back in the early 80s. They’re fine to meet up with for a couple of pints as long as you talk about music, football, the weather, etc. Like most left wingers they are pretty thoughtful, kind and compassionate people. Whenever you try and talk to them about politics above a base level they can become really doctrinaire, fixed and seem to be only communicate their politics through a series of stock phrases. A lot of research into cults shows that they use fixed terminology and ideas which not only creates group cohesion, they all know the terminology and can only really discuss things with fellow adherents, but also provides a barrier for them to communicate with others who don’t use the proscribed phraseology. I think this happens in left wing groups. I am pretty sure (but cannot be certain) that we do this far less than the leftist groups. The Standard is always very readable and accessible, our leaflets are usually well developed and accessible as is most of our literature. If you read the red topped newspapers of the leftist groups they are usually very simplistic and based on phrase mongering and rabble rousing. They often produce a monthly “Theoretical Journal”, which is badly written as it is impenetrable.
The 1980’s version of the RCP was an even more extreme version of that presentation, even the leftists thought that they were a bunch of headcases. I think the 80s RCP’s place as the complete fruit loops of the left wing spectrum has been taken on by the Revolutionary Communist Group (they publish Fight Racism/Fight Imperialism), which was the party from which the 1980s RCP emerged. The Revolutionary Communist Group was a split from the IS/SWP who left the SWP in the early 70s. Their Guru was David Yaffe, who interestingly recently resigned from the RCG alongside another member saying they had “lost confidence in the current RCG leadership. It is intransigent, dogmatic, formalistic and bureaucratic.” they “had been ignored”.. You would have thought that being in the RCG for 45 years would have got them used to being ignored.
