The end?

How to Read Marx Like a Human Not a Tool. 

Ok, we need to set some ground rules here. First, we aren't debating anything. I'm telling you my reading of the English translation of Marx's most famous works. All i care about is The Communist Manifesto and Volume 1 of Capital. 2) i think Lenin was wrong in his interpretation of a couple important aspects, and i think Stalin was a buffoon. I don't mean that in the common offhanded dismissal of mainstream Marxist Thought way, as in "ugh, those backtracking wusses, afraid of a little oppression and murder," i mean if Marx had lived to see Lenin's rise to despotism he would have said "no, dirtbags, you're doing it wrong. This is exactly what i said was the stupid part." 

Again, we aren't debating my opinion, i'm allowed to be wrong because I'm not telling you to do or not do anything other than form your own opinion and compare and contrast it with mine. That sounds antagonistic, i know, but it's the only accurate description of the scenario i can utter. You don't get to tell me that my opinion isn't my opinion, you just file it in the "Bottle's opinion as i understand it" folder until you have something to contribute to the conversation. I think we can both agree i would have been extra-special worked/starved to death in the gulags of 100 years ago Soviet Union because i'm a loud-mouthed jackass. 

I have a limit test/rule. If you end up having to kill or torture people to get a road repaved, you are some flavor of wrong. Marx doesn't try to justify it, he very clearly says violence and rebellion and war are an inevitable reaction to exploitation and oppression and History tells us there's no obvious way to actually escape it. The more developed an industrial society the less violence actually takes place, but the end result is always some qualitative version of war. His actual suggestion is the democratic election of representatives who will politically advocate for the working class so that people can support themselves rather than depending on generosity and pity (nothing is fair until you agree it's fair). He advocated spreading people out, giving them land and technology to support themselves and freely trade the surplus with others, rather than forcing them to owe a debt to a landlord for the privilege of being allowed to live in poverty. It's still possible to choose to be lazy and starve under that plan, but you can't argue you didn't have access to the knowledge and technology necessary for a productive and fulfilling life. I used to tell my students "i'm telling you what to do to pass this course, the people who do it get As and Bs, the people who don't get Ds and Fs. I have no idea how hard or easy it will be for any particular one of you, so drive your struggle bus over to my office hours and i'll gladly give you extra help." I didn't actually say it in those exact words, but maybe it would have been more productive. Se la mort on that one. 

The first problem i have with Lenin is that he clearly took the "inevitability of exploitation" as a justification for oppressing and exploiting the predominantly peasant population of Eastern Asia. Some days i'd rather be a subsistence farmer, to be honest. I know which part Lenin misunderstood, it's the part where Marx talks about looking down on the farmer as lazy and inefficient. It's easy to misunderstand, Marx doesn't reiterate the context of that statement as a specifically Capitalist point of view inside the larger process of exploitation; he doesn't clarify his rhetorical approach, he shortsightedly assumes you understand it. Stalin's notion of single-nation Communism is equally problematic, because that is just about as opposite of a global proletariat as i can imagine. The story about the hand-picked bloody roses and apology to Konstantin Rokossovsky is pretty interesting though, as are the happy birthday exchanges between him and Churchill right up until that Iron Curtain diatribe. FDR's in there somewhere as well. I know i'm rambling, i just think people tend to not actually conceptualize all the things that were happening at the same time. How many people mistakenly think Stalin was Axis rather than Ally and ignore the fact that Pearl Harbor is what actually forced us to choose a side in WWII? It was Stalin's war against Hitler and Mussolini when you brass tack it, and we had so many fascism fanatics Vonnegut had to write a book about it. Killed an imaginary pregnant lady and everything. 

Where was i? Oh yeah, it is certainly true that Marx envisioned a type of globalized society, but i think we have to look at that in its most honest and simple manifestation. A carpenter should be able to go anywhere on Earth and have a productive and comfortable life as a carpenter. A doctor is a doctor, a lawyer a lawyer, a mechanic a mechanic, and so on. Professions might have varying levels of importance in different places, but some amount of what you do is equal to some amount of what another person does; we should all be able to adapt to the changing needs of society as a whole and we should all have access to the technology and education that makes that possible. 

The next problem is Communism itself. Communism is clearly a religion in Marx's brain (he compares them to all the really nasty drugs made from poppies like Marcy Playground did): it has an origin story, it has a teleological goal, and it has a detailed series of devout behaviors that assure you'll get to the promised reward. I skipped over that chapter of the manifesto, but i told you that's what it actually does, it criticizes the utopian aspects of broader Communist ideas, and says true revolution can only come from the people usurping the power of their handlers. You know me, i say there's no bowl of Lucky Charms at the end of the rainbow, but i completely and respectfully accept your right to disagree with me so long as you aren't using it to try to take advantage of me.  Marx might scold me for that, but i ain't afraid of no ghost. 

Back to the point. What are the real dynamics of Marx's evaluation of Capitalism? First of all, Capitalism very much works. The boss exploits his workers for profit, consumers get happy and demand more, it gets bigger and bigger, but before any one guy actually wins, the people being exploited chop off his head. That's not allegorical, by the way, that's literally the French Revolution and the umpteenth time it's happened in Marx's "History is Fun" library reading list. Marx very clearly implies that's stupid. The end result is a crash either way, so we should use the best tools we have to make the process as survivable as possible. Economically speaking, Marx says it would be better to approach the cataclysm by letting the global economy actually reach its equilibrium rather than waking up one morning to find that one guy actually won and the entire rest of the world has no money until he decides how to divide it all up again. 

I'm reminded of the very peculiar and interesting distinction between a Republic and a Soviet Democracy. The term "Soviet," by the way is the actual name for the type of democratically elected representative and by extension the congress of elected representatives. Soviet isn't merely a synonym for "Russian" like most of us Americans naively think it is. If you are one of those Americans then you're really gonna hate the fact that our Electoral College is really difficult to intellectually differentiate from Soviet Democracy. By all means, go read the thousands of pages of text about it and pick my consolidated appraisal apart, i will very much respect your efforts. 

I myself am a "do it or don't" kind of guy. I don't find much value in putting off what you're still not going to want to do tomorrow; if it's a coin flip, i'll flip an actual coin so i don't have to care anymore. If you have to waste time threatening me, you could have already killed me by now. James Spader would have (a Blacklist reference, where did that come from?). And that, believe it or not, winds us all the way around to a sentiment best expressed by Neil Gaiman's Mary Katherine Gallagher impression from American Gods. We all know the game is rigged, but it's the only game in town. 

My question is, do you think he punned his own name on purpose, or was it just a happy little Bob Rossian coincidence?

Post up down sideways

 And just like that, i'm stage right as rain. Up on the downside? It's hard being the only practitioner of Bottleism, mostly because it's so hard to think while talking to myself.

I suppose you can blame Ozzy Osbourne's No More Tours Tour for that. Maybe it was No More Tours Tour 2, i dunno. I am of course referring to seeing the news that the student loan interest deferral has been pushed back to May instead of a couple weeks from now. Crazy considering i got the email that the transfer from Navient to whothehellever was finalized yesterday or the day before or whatever. It's like Gladys said, you have to know which hallway you're walking which direction. I'm sure i mentioned in writing that sound travels freely down here. Compy for the confirmation...

C: it just so happens i read that second book recently, and yes that's exactly what you said.

B: ok, good, glad i'm not crazier than the crazy i fully admit to being.

Now, we're halfway through this 4th book and i'm out of records. That's a lie of course, i just don't feel like listening to a lot of them at the moment. Logically we should find an Ozzy or Black Sabbath album to listen to while i logorhate all over the ethersphere; roll your own.

Look, i didn't grow up in Soviet Russia or newly Republicanized Iceland like Björk (she says it rhymes with "jerk" in case you didn't know), and i don't have any firsthand experience with being in "government," but i do have a fair bit more than professional experience being me. I'm the leading world expert, you might say. Stoic Skepticism. I neither believe in absolute knowledge, nor care much about the whimsical oscillations of pleasure and pain. Que será será, except of course that it's not in any way mandatory. Nothing HAS to be the way it is, and you certainly don't have to believe it if you don't want to.

I choose to view life as an endless series of smashing your face against the wall because that's what people seem to want to build. What i've noticed is that other people seem to be very confused as they watch me just walk through them, or around them. None of that garbage actually affects me, it affects other people who then freak out and infiltrate my secret lair of minding my own business.

The saving grace at the moment is that most of the Republican legislation being drafted is deposited directly into a garbage can, but sadly the Democrats aren't making any headway because they aren't writing any legislation and when they do they vote against it because it isn't mildly left of hard right enough.

This might sting a lot, but Biden isn't Left, Sanders isn't Left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't Left. Same argument i've been making all along. How can you be a Capitalist if you don't own a factory and employ thousands of workers both in house and by proxy? You can't, that's the definition of Capitalism.

What's the real issue here? Well, us people can't pay our debts without money, and we can't get money without being taxed by the same people who handed it to us. If the government pays that debt, i owe the income tax on 200,000. I don't feel like actually doing math so let's go overboard and say 40% effective tax rate. That's 80,000 due the next time April rolls around. I currently have 10,000 of that. So yeah, not good. What's the opposite, no income tax and no payoff? How would that help? The answer is that both things have to happen simultaneously, or the whole thing really does have to crash into a pile of rubble. Is the outcome actually any different in either direction? Does it actually matter if you intentionally or negligently drive your car off the cliff?

If you've read this far you're probably wondering where this hallway is going. I don't know. I do know the next room is all about how the roles get switched when you're actually out here living it.

Just to show a baseline let's say the money supply (aka national debt) averages 30,000 per person. How do you create one legitimate billionaire, a person who actually possesses a billion dollars? Well, you can take away 33,333.33 peoples' money. You could take 333.33 dollars from 3 million people and leave them with an average of 29,666.66 each. 10 billionaires? 20? 30?

I'm just a regular schmuck on the street, the only money i have access to is the money that trickled down from some billionaire. It doesn't matter what I think or feel or want or hope for, i have to wake up and put on pants and go do whatever it is makes a person with more money than me more money than that so they'll hand me some of it. Does it matter if that person is nice or terrible? Sure, of course it matters, but only if you actually have the ability to choose, and again only if consistently choosing to associate with the nice people lowers the number of terrible people. I worry that it actually increases the number of terrible people.

At the end of the day, all decisions are made by the person who decided them based on the known and unknown consequences. I can't do anything about it, there's like 95 degrees of Kevin Bacons between me and the President, and i'd be willing to bet close to 94 of them don't want to be the person who decides anything. If i wanted to waste the time and energy to write them a letter it would really just say "do it or don't, you wanted to be in charge so you get the responsibility of being in charge. You're allowed to quit as far as i'm concerned. In the meantime, i have a building full of chicken poop to shovel."

My opinion has always been, and probably always will be, we don't need a centralized governmental authority making poorly informed laws that do nothing. Instead, we need people who will do what they say they are going to do and clean up the mess afterward. You don't need 47 pieces of paper and 12 initials after your name on a cheap plaque on an expensive door; the results should speak for themselves.

It's not a governor's or mayor's job to tell us how to live our lives, it their job to make sure that some jerk doesn't sell us a monorail we don't need then tear down our houses to build it.

Oh crap... a 4th book

 C: hey Bottle, guess what.

B: chi...cken...butt??

C: nonono, we've officially recouped the expense of the first book.

B: so you're saying my joke wasn't just a clever marketing gimmick?

C: no, i'm saying it only took 3 books worth of work to pay for the first book worth of work.

B: but correct me if i'm wrong, i'm still the expense of 2 books in the hole.

C: well, yeah, i mean there is that, but you put less time, effort, and investment into each successive one, so the karma kind of works if you squint just right.

B: fair rebuttal.

doubleVee

Today we're fully enjoying both kooky albums from doubleVee  (Allan and Barb Vest). If Pop-cabre were a genre, that's what i'd call it. I'm a huge fan of Starlight Mints so it's pure delight to hear Allan's eclectic orchestration and downright catchy melodies in any context. Give  The Moonlit Fables of Jack the Rider and/or Songs for Birds and Bats a listen and tell me what you think.

Doublevee.bandcamp.com

Publishing 5 6 7

 Part 5

Ok, last essay of the day, i promise. One of the first choices you'll face is size. Size and page count are highly maneuverable, and yes 1/4 inch can have a noticeable effect on print cost for your specific book. Ingram has a publicly available cost calculator you can plug random numbers into to get an idea. We are being fiddly here. The photo is a random assortment of books i read over the last 6 months. For comparison, my 3 books are 6x9.

Little secret, i absolutely don't care. As long as it isn't awkward to hold and you don't actually have OCD, it absolutely doesn't matter. My books are 6x9 because they are fairly enormous. They'd be 1,000+ page monstrosities that fall apart from their own weight if i sized them like Vonnegut's Deadeye Dick. Those Barthes books are practically pamphlets by comparison.

Play around with your book in your word processor and see what you like, then plug those numbers into the calculator and see the price. The only trick is that you add 1/4 (.25) inch to the dimension. My word processor version is 6.25x9.25.

The second tricky thing is that odd pages go on the right, and that's the opposite of how it looks on your computer screen. I've paid for that mistake so you don't have to.

Now some good news, that's it. That's all the actual formatting you have to worry about. Believe me, try properly collating those pages for double-sided printing in sheafs one time and you'll be ecstatic that that's Ingram's problem now, not yours.

That's enough for one day. I need my beauty sleep, such as it is. Hopefully i can remain on this train of thought tomorrow, but you know we never know ;) cheers.

Part 6 

Ok, just so we're all clear here, there is no market, only an entire earth full of potential customers. You're going to be tempted to think that people who buy books are "the market," but that's not true at all. "The Market" exists in the past of a future you who has already successfully sold some number of books. I know that sounds a lot like the future, but it's not. You are stuck living chronological while future realities buzz around like a swarm of gnats near the lake. The Market is the measurement of done deals, and the photograph you take of it is a bifurcating reality where you guess about the future actions of all the people who lived inside that photograph, and end up somewhere along THAT future with the relevant photograph from ITS past. 

The only data you have is the observable fact that nobody cares that you wrote a book, and they don't want to give you any money in the first place. The market is your interpretation of past sales as the basis for your guess as to how that picture will look in the future. In your brain, that fact contorts into the illusion of future people who might buy your book if you imagineer the conditions into just the right configuration of coincidences. That hallway leads to some heavy duty psychological feng shui, so we'll mosey off in a different direction. Plenty of familiar dirt to explore without inventing imaginary future dirt. 

Instead, we'll take some time to consider why that extradimensional fold in perceived reality takes place.

Part 7 

What the hell just happened in part 6? The answer is that i unfolded reality into its component parts as we psychologically experience them, not as they really are. This is the order of ideas, not the order in which we find out if those ideas are true or false. I am Bottle, welcome to my nightmare. 

What you've really done is created the architecture of your own future confirmation bias. At some point you will forget you did that and believe a fictional version of reality that bears no resemblance to the actual experiential process of getting there. You might never notice, you might smash into yourself running the other direction and explode, that one's a coin flip. 

You can see what's happening in my previous posts; we're thinking in two opposite directions at the same time. On one hand you have every human on earth as a potential customer and your brain tries to narrow that infinity down to some comprehendable demographic. On the other hand you have the reality of 0 customers and you're trying to bootstrap your way to creating that previously mentioned imaginary reality. Somewhere looming in the middle is the potential metaphorical car crash.