Chomsky is a pretty brilliant guy and it's pretty sad that he's probably gonna be gone in like 5-10 years

This is by no means an insult to you, or anyone really, but I think this is an interesting point. The thing a lot of people I know can't seem to differentiate is that Chomsky is a brilliant person, but his political ideology isn't. To be fair no particular political ideology is even nearing perfect but instead of abolishing all the work towards the current structure in favor of a non-hierarchical system based upon some of the most flawed, idealistic aspects of communism is kind of counter-intuitive. People only view these subjects as binary: they're smart, or they're not. They have the right idea, or they don't. The thing is almost all philosophies have some valid basis but the actual implementation these ideas require isn't usually possible or effective with most people. People get generalized: what works for one person won't work for another. And that's why no system can truly be perfect- because perfection is defined by the individual and unless all the people are exactly the same no one will come to a unanimous conclusion.


I've been thinking about this a lot because I recently got back from a trip to Baltimore where I was staying in a townhouse with a group of about 7 punks. Almost all of them were anarcho-communists and I think it's interesting to note that they all had personal disagreements about how this revolution would work and how it would be handled afterwards. If after hundreds of years with (now) millions of people working to improve our system, and very slow progress, what leads them to believe abolishing all that and replacing it with some infrastructure they can't even agree upon would just work? Everyone wants to think they have an answer to the major world issues but ultimately it's something we have to spend a lot of time analyzing and trying to make better, not just a simple question with an answer. You can make things better for most people, but you won't please everyone.


Ultimately I think these are the best times to live in as the original subject of this thread was. I know plenty of people who discuss the individual being alienated by technology, government, etc. but it ultimately is just romanticizing over abstract ideas of the past that, in reality, never were much better in the first place. Many people are so pessimistic about the future but all I can see is the same improvement we've experienced over the course of our duration- only now it's advancing quicker than ever. I am excited to see what things time brings even if they're not always the greatest- because what purpose does greatness have if we can't contrast it against the struggles?


I am glad this thread exists because even if I don't necessarily agree with everything said 100% it is still being put out there and is giving me something to think about.

Thanks, I do a lot of sprites like this so I'm glad you like it! I spend a lot of time on it.


Yeah, that's fair enough. I didn't think of it that way so much, but that's actually a good point. The culture of the time and the influence of other people plays a role way more than what people actually want deep down even from personal experience. If an idea isn't present in your culture, there isn't really any demand for it. This gets into language ultimately where if you can't express an idea you can't really understand it entirely. The whole thing with Chompsky is that he's interesting in his philosophy on linguistics and obviously is a bright person (to me at least) but I really don't agree with him as far as a lot of his political views go, and even the social implications on some of his linguistic writings. I really don't feel like I have to agree with him entirely to give him a degree of credit as an influential linguist and smart guy overall, but I see where you're coming from. A lot of intellectuals alienate others with an inflated sense of worth that really makes it hard to relate with them on any level really. Of course there are always people willing to eat it up and continue buying into it so as you say, they're only feeding those peoples' egos. I think Chompsky is a pretty damn smart guy (even if some of it is squandered) but I can understand what you mean.