You are totally right, my phrasing was too strong, but Marx's theory is to date the most popular in sociology, though J accept there are others that predate him (though whatever strengths Mill had they were not philosophic).
A lot of my comments concern Marx or Communism broadly because they are important ideas, and my chosen mode of analysis is to take advantage of totality in the critical sense. True, Marcuse said that not everyone's problem with his girlfriend is due to capitalism, but the analysis remains there to use advantageously. Secondly, the hat I wear as a programming hobbyist is generally secondary to the social sciences dabbler hat. So some thread interest me more than others.
Now good faith insight and having an agenda are not of course mutually exclusice. Yes, I admit my ideology but I think its analyses in whole or part can probably be interesting to an audience far removed from it on HN. I only aim to help and spread what I know and am interested in; Marx was one of the most important thinkers of the modern age, along with Nietzsche and Freud, even the most ardent capitalist would say so.
Maybe I will vary the topics I post about more, since looking at my history I can see your analysis might make sense. But as a side note, there are probably vim/Emacs/SQL/nosql/Linux/bsd fans here who engage very much in a similar way.. but still aim to help and educate. Having a preferred topic is fine.
You make good points regarding insight and agenda, theoretically self-interest, agenda and collaboration can intersect and be net-positive for all involved and I appreciate your tone didn’t devolve, I couldn’t help but bring this up because I noticed your username on two different threads, oftentimes people become adversarial during meta-discussion.
I believe it was Heidegger who purposed that an important part of living was making peace with dying, and consequently, dying and having done nothing in life and being completely accepting of that fact, with no attached anxieties is an ‘enlightened’ state that we should all strive to embody. I suppose this channels Camus’s notion of absurdity and life devoid of any inherent meaning.
Maybe this article resonates with readers here because our work is so detached from Gattungswesen, we work in abstract, complex and mathematical realms, for corporations who purport that they “make the world a better place through SaaS data-science, blockchain, machine-learning analytics” and request from us labor performed with feigned enthusiasm. I argue that the nature of high-technology work is inherently alienated, we aren’t farmers or mothers or teachers and oftentimes the most satisfying activities are inert ones like meditation and sleep, doing anything at all can feel alienating and laborious because of the very human biological imperative to conserve energy.
For many people, economically-productive work itself is alienating, some would rather be artists, writers or do nothing at all, and no economic system can change that, however we aren’t in a post-scarcity economy so we work because we have to and because we wouldn’t want to work any other job.
A lot of my comments concern Marx or Communism broadly because they are important ideas, and my chosen mode of analysis is to take advantage of totality in the critical sense. True, Marcuse said that not everyone's problem with his girlfriend is due to capitalism, but the analysis remains there to use advantageously. Secondly, the hat I wear as a programming hobbyist is generally secondary to the social sciences dabbler hat. So some thread interest me more than others.
Now good faith insight and having an agenda are not of course mutually exclusice. Yes, I admit my ideology but I think its analyses in whole or part can probably be interesting to an audience far removed from it on HN. I only aim to help and spread what I know and am interested in; Marx was one of the most important thinkers of the modern age, along with Nietzsche and Freud, even the most ardent capitalist would say so.
Maybe I will vary the topics I post about more, since looking at my history I can see your analysis might make sense. But as a side note, there are probably vim/Emacs/SQL/nosql/Linux/bsd fans here who engage very much in a similar way.. but still aim to help and educate. Having a preferred topic is fine.