A tumblr question or comment signed “anon” has always perplexed me. If you’ve got something constructive or positive to say, wouldn’t the recipient want to know the online “you”? And if you’re going to be a troll, own your shit, don’t hide behind two layers of anonymity. Although with some of the amazingly depraved and awesomely kinky content posted on this blog, perhaps they’re afraid of being outed as a reader. I’m not. This blog has helped bring out my inner pig and I’m grateful for it.

Well, I leave it on for a reason, because I do think some people don’t want everyone to know they follow me. I understand the shame, but I also think that a) most people probably don’t give a fuck what you’re into, especially around here, and b) the only way to get over it is to push through it, right?

You’d probably know a thing about that, right? You small dicked little faggot? Every anon on here is still more of a man than you’ll ever be. 

You know, I always submit questions as Anon when people want asks, so they can take all the questions fairly. Also, bam, straight back into terminology I guess.

There’s nothing wrong with asking questions as an Anon, but if you ask a question anonymously and then also say that you’re looking to promote yourself…

But honestly, I like it when people come off Anon, because I like actually engaging with people. It’s more interesting to be able to put a little more personality behind the names/pics of people I see liking my stuff. It’s a little less like shouting into the void that way. I’d like to think I’d be as fair answering question on anon as I would be off, but I can also see how my sarcastic and caustic demeanor would have people thinking otherwise.

[New Player Added] I enjoy your stories, was reading over your asks etc. Why is it that you hate capitalism? I completely understand how many problems it caused when company towns were a thing, however once that got sorted out, our world became what it is today- almost every luxury we have is the product of capitalism: fresh water/plumbing, every appliance, mechanical methods of transportation and roads. Even during feudalism, despite servants and apprentices not necessarily paid, only their 1-

Here’s the full question, which got broken up:

[New Player Added] I enjoy your stories, was reading over your asks etc. Why is it that you hate capitalism? I completely understand how many problems it caused when company towns were a thing, however once that got sorted out, our world became what it is today- almost every luxury we have is the product of capitalism: fresh water/plumbing, every appliance, mechanical methods of transportation and roads. Even during feudalism, despite servants and apprentices not necessarily paid, only their

needs were supported. And even people getting land for labor, they still needed to sell items to support themselves. With only communism, industry wouldn’t exist. There used to be people who specializes in clothe making, blacksmithing, etc. But there would be no manufacturing. No organized work unless they were all servants under one name. Capitalism isn’t that different from Feudalism, just instead of land it’s industry. So again, why is Capitalism evil and Communism above it?

   

First of all, even Marx thought that Capitalism was a modern marvel. Capitalism has generated a lot of great advances in general quality of life. But Capitalism has done a lot of terrible shit too–colonialism, human trafficking, environmental destruction, police states, world wars, nuclear weapons, etc. etc. You have to take the bad with the good here.

But beyond that, it’s important to remember than traditional Marxism functioned on a version of Hegel’s theory of history, which…well, it’s doubtful that it’s very true, but it provides important context for the theory. For Hegel, and for Marx, history is a story of human progress, and to them, history has an end point–a level of human civilization where, essentially, we all, as humans, finally figure our shit out. For Hegel, this was the advancing Napoleonic Empire (that was a pretty hot take) and for Marx this was a future economic system he called Communism.

The difficulty with trying to describe Communism is that Marx was never very specific about what, exactly, it would look like in any of his writings. To some extent, this makes sense–after all, if we’re assuming (in his framework) that Communism would be the pinnacle of human progress, if we knew now what it would look like, then, necessarily, shouldn’t we be able to create it with the snap of our fingers? Under the Hegelian view, we would, essentially, know when we saw it, but we could take some guesses.

Mark gave some rough guidelines himself. Communism would be fundamentally egalitarian in nature. Because each previous economic system was toppled by a collapsing of class hierarchy, and because the end result of Capitalism (to Marx) was the collapse of all of human society into two classes–a small percentage of wealthy capitalists and a huge mass of workers–that the revolution at the end of Capitalism would necessarily result in a single, unified class of workers. This is probably a pipe dream, but it’s what he thought. Mostly, the fundamental ruling principle of Communism would be that the means of production is owned and operated by the workers–no one is alienated by their own labor, and the false consciousness of class ideology will have at last fallen like scales from our eyes.

So is Capitalism evil? I would say so. Capitalism has created a system where the vast majority of the global population live in relative poverty compared to a small collection of wealthy corporations and individuals. This division has only grown more stark in recent years. But setting aside the question of evil, a better question is whether Capitalism is sustainable. This, I think, is the more powerful argument that Marx puts forth, in his third volume of Capital. Capitalism is fueled by consumption–because the fundamental economic drive of the system is the accumulation of resources, Capitalists have to constantly be searching and squeezing out every last chunk of surplus wealth people and the world have to offer. The result is a constantly escalating series of economic booms and busts, the complete destruction of the environment, and massive consolidation of wealth.

Personally? I think this is unsustainable. I think Capitalism will, at some point, collapse under it’s own weight. I doubt that the result will be communism, because I don’t think history runs on rails. I think it’s probably too late for humanity, given the rapidly approaching crises of climate change, sea level rise, and global war.

But hey, we have appliances, right? And plumbing.

Yay.

I get so aroused by mind drain stories and I’m not sure why. That being said, I think you handle mind drain really well by not beating the reader over the head with it. Not every mind drain is a person with superior intellect, some have average intelligence and I appreciate that.

Thanks! I mean, I like drooling idiots as much as the next guy, but for me, dumbing down is less about the loss of mental ability, and more about the humiliation the guy suffers because of it. Some writers make the mistake, I think, of thinking that the greater the fall, the greater the arousal–that is, taking a genius with an IQ of 200 down to the level of an imbecile is better than changes which are less extreme.

But while extremes can be good, a lot of times this turns into caricature. It’s not really erotic, it’s mostly humorous. What makes mind drain work for me, is that it makes someone unable to function in the life they created for themselves. Even just draining away skills without touching intellect is intriguing to me. It’s about finding new ways to render characters helpless, and therefore dependent on the people changing/controlling them.