We are all dependant upon the machine, and if the machines stopped working most of us would die...

>We are all dependant upon the machine, and if the machines stopped working most of us would die. You may hate the machine-civilisation, probably you are right to hate it, but for the present there can be no question of accepting or rejecting it. The machine-civilisation is HERE, and it can only be criticised from the inside, because all of us are inside it. It is only the romantic fools who flatter themselves that they have escaped...

Is he right? Is there really no escape?

Inb4 Unabomber manifesto

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There is no escape for the atheist.

>that same ratzingerholdingamonstrance.jpg that appears in every Christian thread

You spend a lot of time here Ratzinger-user

Well it could be Ratzinger. I imagine he has a lot of time to spread the word of faith on here since he no longer has Pope duties to do.

I am a conservative Catholic. I am necessarily a big fan of Benedict. I've been reading his "Jesus of Nazareth" books, and I find them extraordinary.

I also think he's very special in a divine way. I think after he dies he will be declared a Doctor of the Church, and I'm not the first person to make that claim. I think I may be the first person to claim that he'll outlive Francis. I think Francis will die and Benedict will still be alive, old and feeble but still kicking, just barely. Call it a prophecy.

>call it a prophecy

Or the ravings of a loon.

Most things are possible with collective willpower. The question is if we are still able to muster it.

The obvious answer is appropriating the productive power of global capitalism to create a socialist society.
Most political "philosophies" are purely idealist concaptions that separate the social from the economic and thus have no relevance or descriptive power to aid the average worker. Marxist Socialism is still the most complete and realistic analysis of society.

Live in a remote and arable, tectonically stable location with good soil, plenty of sunlight and fresh water.
Build your home to last for 90+ years. Clear out an acre for fruits/vegetables and farm animals. Add solar panels.
You can have every modern convenience without any reliance on modern logistics.

Can't help you getting weak and old, but you'd be able to survive a long time without any connection to centralized systems in modern society if you really wanted to.

>every modern convenience
Except modern fucking medicine, especially in an emergency

That's nice except that it requires a lot of money in advance.

The machine is okay. Why is everyone so negative?

It's interesting to compare this to Keep the Aspidistra Flying, where the whole story is a man trying to escape that system - it has a happy ending too, unusually for Orwell's work.

Orwell was a spineless ugly little frail cuckold

THESE ARE NOT THE ANSWERS I WANTED

This is already being done to some extent, isn't it? All modern developed economies are capitalist with socialist aspects. The question is what balance to strike. Too much socialism seems to destroy the capitalism that fuels the social programs to begin with. Too massive attempts to reorganize society along socialist lines result in social breakdown and misery, plus usually the new social structures are less pleasant than the old ones. The thing is, in real socialism every worker would have to also be a manager and a politician. Many people would only do this if they were compensated a great deal otherwise it's extra work for no benefit. But historically, attempts to build socialism have failed to deliver the sort of economic benefits that would make such a society sustainable. Even "socialism"'s great successes, like modernizing China, weren't really successes of socialism. They were successes of totalitarian central planning, a very different thing, and only bought at massive costs in blood in any case.

>The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that Socialism, in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the middle classes. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years’ time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of every shade; it has perhaps been taken over en bloc from. the old Liberal Party. In addition to this there is the horrible — the really disquieting — prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.

Was he right?

Yes

"In a way it is even humiliating
to watch coal-miners working. It raises in you a momentary doubt about
your own status as an 'intellectual' and a superior person generally.
For it is brought home to you, at least while you are watching, that it
is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can
remain superior. You and I and the editor of the _Times Lit._ _Supp._,
and the nancy poets and the Archbishop of Canterbury and Comrade X,
author of _Marxism for Infants_--all of us _really_ owe the comparative
decency of our lives to poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes,
with their throats full of coal dust, driving their shovels forward with
arms and belly muscles of steel."

Who here /hermit/?

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