Have you ever run into Trotskyites before? You know, those dour, uptight dudes handing out free papers at demonstrations? They can spout some pretty colorful rhetoric but apart from that, most of them lead dull, constricted lives devoted to Party meetings and getting out the Party newspaper. Juan Posadas was the exception to this rule. Señor Posadas was a high-octane Trotskyite superfreak who advocated a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USA in order to hasten the proletarian revolution. He looked to the skies and saw UFOs as evidence of the triumph of communism on other planets. Fidel Castro banned the Cuban section of his movement for trying to organize an attack on the U.S. base at Guantanamo. They don’t make ‘em like Posadas anymore. That’s for sure. (If you’re curious, there’s an archive of his works stored here. And some people are still keeping the faith.)
posted by jason's_planet on Sep 24, 2006 - 50 comments

Never wanna work/Always wanna play/Pleasure, pleasure every day. What happens when the jobs go away and don't return? Should we take the surpluses generated and pay people not to work? What happens to the assumption of scarcity when nanotechology allows us to generate potentially anything we want from grass clippings? Maybe Marx had it wrong all along. Maybe, instead of fetishizing work and the authoritarian mindset that it generates, we should have been reading Paul Lafargue instead. Just as a thought experiment, what would you do if your job category disappeared? How would you spend your time? Would you invest more time and energy in friendships and other relationships? Hobbies? If you were your employer, what technologies would you use to get rid of your position and save money?
posted by jason's_planet on Jun 25, 2006 - 43 comments