Existential Comics

22 Mar 2021 18:30

"Actually Wittgenstein there is a clear difference, enchiladas have sauce on top and are eaten with a fork."
"Ahhh, well, nonetheless though..."

Existential Comics

15 Mar 2021 18:30

"See this is why the ideal republic has a horde of simpletons, who we lie to and they do all the hard work for us."

Existential Comics

08 Mar 2021 18:30

to be fair looking at stuff and writing down what you see is a pain in the ass

Existential Comics

01 Mar 2021 18:30

Karl Marx's concept of commodity fetishism (fetish here meaning "to imbue with mystical properties", it has nothing to do with sexual fetishes), goods sold in the marketplace under capitalism obscure the relationship between workers who create them for their use value. Despite believing that communism would ultimately do away with marketplaces, Marx actually loved the ideal of the marketplace as described by capitalist economists, wherein workers produce various things that are useful to other people and exchange them using money as a mediator, organically organizing labor for everyone's benefit. In theory, the baker would produce bread for everyone and the carpenter would build things, and the amount of labor put in would indicate the price of the good (this is called the labor theory of value, which he got from Adam Smith). For example, if people noticed that carpenters were making twice as much money as bakers, more people would become carpenters, diluting the market and eventually the amount of labor and money earned would equalize over time (it turns out some prices can't be explained this way, but it does explain a lot). The problem was, this marketplace doesn't exist, because there is a third person: the capitalist. Not only that, but he owns and controls everyone's labor. So commodities actually end up not being produced for use by other people at all and exchanged in a fair marketplace, they are produced solely for the capitalist's profit, and this only loosely corresponds to the wants and desires of the consumers. For example, supermarkets will throw away food that is expired, and actively guard the discarded food to prevent people from eating it (we saw this just recently in Portland during a Blizzard, where the police were preventing people from "looting" food that had been thrown away). This is completely irrational behavior, because the entire purpose of growing food was for human consumption. So why do they do it? Because it is "rational" for maximizing their profits: it keeps the price higher for the goods on the shelf (it's also irrational to want higher prices, rationally we should all want cheaper goods, but again the capitalist's interest is directly against that of society here). The market is distorted, and the goods themselves become distorted because capitalists (and even consumers in the end) only see the goods as having exchange value, in other words, I can exchange 80 oranges for 1 chair. Lost in all this, however, is why the oranges and chairs were produced to begin with. The capitalists themselves don't even care why they were produced, they only care if they will turn a profit, so the goods and services become mere abstractions to them. In this way, the rational market, which organizes specialized labor in a way to exchange it for other specialized labor to satisfy all of our needs can never, and will never exist under capitalism. At least according to Marx.

Existential Comics

01 Mar 2021 18:30

Communism Store - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

22 Feb 2021 19:30

Utopian theories only have one small problem, which is that no one ever wants to live there.

Existential Comics

16 Feb 2021 18:30

Based on Bob Mortimer's observation that warning labels saying 'not for indoor use' mean that its fine, in his story on how he burnt his house down.

Existential Comics

16 Feb 2021 18:30

Fireworks and a Theory of Language - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

08 Feb 2021 19:30

Jung and Freud were friends a colleagues for a long time, and did analyze each other's dreams, but they eventually fell out over differences in theory, mostly over their theories on the consciousness. Freud thought Jung's ideas on the "collective unconscious" were unscientific nonsense, and Jung thought Freud's ideas on how everything boiled down to sex was pervy nonsense.

Existential Comics

08 Feb 2021 19:30

Freud and Jung Split Over Differences - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

02 Feb 2021 09:30

The State of Nature: Hobbes vs Rousseau - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

25 Jan 2021 19:30

Philosophy Anonymous - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

18 Jan 2021 20:28

One problem with going back into Plato's cave to enlighten the people is that people fundamentally like being stupid idiots.

Existential Comics

11 Jan 2021 18:30

"Trotsky, barging in to flip the table over again: \"permanent revolution!\""

Existential Comics

04 Jan 2021 18:30

"But how do you justify your idea that we all need to follow the man with the stick?"
"I'll give you a one guess..."

Existential Comics

22 Mar 2021 18:30

The History of Philosophy From the Perspective of Chicken Enchiladas - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

15 Mar 2021 18:30

Philosophers Rebuild Society - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

08 Mar 2021 18:30

Galileo and the Empirical Technique - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

01 Mar 2021 18:30

The collapse of the Soviet Union: explained.

Existential Comics

22 Feb 2021 19:30

Thomas More's Utopia describes his vision of a fictional land that represents the ideal way to organize a society for him. While there were many shocking ideas for the time, like the complete elimination of private property, and democratic rule, which seem to benefit everyone, he couldn't help doing what most Utopian visionaries do as well: imagining that everyone lives drab, moralizing lives. He
thought there wouldn't be any ale-houses, fashion, or really any form of vice at all, and people would be perfectly content to spend their time reading philosophy (what is it with philosophers who think the ideal life for everyone is reading philosophy? Have you considered that maybe that's just what you like to do?) Even stranger, slaves were still a large part of the society. Although he
envisioned very human criminal justice reforms (at the time thieves could be put to death, a position he argues against), you could still be sentenced to slavery for crimes. Even weirder, he said that people from foreign lands would volunteer to be slaves in Utopia, because it was so great there. Seems unlikely.

Existential Comics

22 Feb 2021 19:30

Thomas More's Utopia - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

16 Feb 2021 18:30

Look, the way science works in practice is that theories are based on the entire body of knowledge within a community, no one result can disprove...

Existential Comics

09 Feb 2021 02:30

Jung and Freud were friends and colleagues for a long time, and did analyze each other's dreams, but they eventually fell out over differences in theory, mostly over their theories on the consciousness. Freud thought Jung's ideas on the "collective unconscious" were unscientific nonsense, and Jung thought Freud's ideas on how everything boiled down to sex was pervy nonsense.

Existential Comics

08 Feb 2021 19:30

The funniest part of their split in real life though was that Jung told Freud that he thought of him more as a father figure than a friend, and Freud thought that because of his theory how everyone secretly wanted to kill their father that Jung was going to literally kill him.

Existential Comics

02 Feb 2021 09:30

Philosophy would be a lot easier if everything were black and white.

Existential Comics

25 Jan 2021 19:30

"Am I addicted to pushing people down the stairs? Well, that all depends, define 'stairs'."

Existential Comics

18 Jan 2021 20:28

Zera Yacob was a 17th century philosopher, from Ethiopia. Like the comic says he was exiled for refusing to convert to Catholicism, and he spent the time developing a rationalist philosophy which rejected dogmas passed down through the generations, instead believing that human reason should be seen as the foundation of knowledge. While he didn't think religions were wrong, per se, he thought the particular specific dogmas that each faith were fighting over were created by man, in part because many of them seemed irrational and conflicting, so they could not have come from God. Unfortunately when he returned from exile, the new emperor wasn't much more interested in this philosophy than the last, he just wanted to purge the Catholics, like the last guy wanted to purge the Orthodox religion. Just like pretty much everywhere else in the world, the population was the same, preferring their dogmas. At least they didn't kill him though, so that's a plus.

Existential Comics

18 Jan 2021 20:28

Zera Yacob - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

11 Jan 2021 18:30

Philosophical Discussion Group - Existential Comics

Existential Comics

04 Jan 2021 18:30

Desert Island Philosophy - Existential Comics