Nagarjuna's Middle Finger | VarnVlog
@varnvlog.bsky.social
Podcaster, poet, educator, former expatriate, angry person, “moralist," Buddhist. Author of Apocalyptics and Liberation. Host Varn Vlog ☸
“Do you have a citation for that” doesn’t matter when the question about the validity of the citations used and the conclusions drawn about evidence that isn’t in the citation or interpretations for which the citation doesn’t make explicit but the citer just assumes.
December 30, 2025 at 5:36 PM
“Do you have a citation for that” doesn’t matter when the question about the validity of the citations used and the conclusions drawn about evidence that isn’t in the citation or interpretations for which the citation doesn’t make explicit but the citer just assumes.
Also, I seriously can’t believe I have heard “analytic Marxists” say that markets were a check against accounting dishonesty (in planned economies). Having worked in accounts before going into education—no, it does not.
December 29, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Also, I seriously can’t believe I have heard “analytic Marxists” say that markets were a check against accounting dishonesty (in planned economies). Having worked in accounts before going into education—no, it does not.
Socialists who speak as if they believe in supply side economics and equilibrium pricing confuse me: concepts that even monetarist Keynesians and many neoliberals would say both are only modeling abstractions that can explain tendencies if there aren’t countervailing trends.
December 29, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Socialists who speak as if they believe in supply side economics and equilibrium pricing confuse me: concepts that even monetarist Keynesians and many neoliberals would say both are only modeling abstractions that can explain tendencies if there aren’t countervailing trends.
It's weird when the CEO of Bank of America, who is explicitly promoting YIMBYist policies, actually admits that the more increasing housing stock will do is slow price increases, it will not lower prices. He is predicting wages will rise to meet it, with hedges on other costs/1
December 29, 2025 at 5:56 PM
It's weird when the CEO of Bank of America, who is explicitly promoting YIMBYist policies, actually admits that the more increasing housing stock will do is slow price increases, it will not lower prices. He is predicting wages will rise to meet it, with hedges on other costs/1
Also popularism is for weak willed syncophants and such people rarely stay popular for good reason.
December 29, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Also popularism is for weak willed syncophants and such people rarely stay popular for good reason.
Parasocial populism starts in the flash pan of romantic resistance and alienation and ends in the ashes of bots, recuperation, cannibalism your of own image for clicks.
December 28, 2025 at 4:22 AM
Parasocial populism starts in the flash pan of romantic resistance and alienation and ends in the ashes of bots, recuperation, cannibalism your of own image for clicks.
One of the DSA problems is that the face of it to the public actually aren’t DSA organs or even the caucus fights we see on here and in NYC and LA locals, it’s media apparatus that is increasingly disconnected from where it was 15 years ago when it started and the org’s members.
December 27, 2025 at 11:20 PM
One of the DSA problems is that the face of it to the public actually aren’t DSA organs or even the caucus fights we see on here and in NYC and LA locals, it’s media apparatus that is increasingly disconnected from where it was 15 years ago when it started and the org’s members.
The reason I focus on legislative is that legislative change has historically more change the structure of government in lasting ways but it also is the prime point of oligarchic or elite capture particularly locally. When you focus on the executive you can seem to break that/1
December 27, 2025 at 11:19 PM
The reason I focus on legislative is that legislative change has historically more change the structure of government in lasting ways but it also is the prime point of oligarchic or elite capture particularly locally. When you focus on the executive you can seem to break that/1
Joseph Tainter had taught me that people will seek individual sovereignty to undo complexity of systems that get so dense no one understands them but that in almost all cases this tendency towards Caesarism accelerates the complexity through hubris and incompetence.
December 27, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Joseph Tainter had taught me that people will seek individual sovereignty to undo complexity of systems that get so dense no one understands them but that in almost all cases this tendency towards Caesarism accelerates the complexity through hubris and incompetence.
When you understand that many of things used by Mont Pelerin society where first proposed by progressive leftists but that left critics of the left also tend to be soft on this by just embracing the right-wing recuperation, you start to see why I insist on socialist independence.
December 27, 2025 at 11:19 PM
When you understand that many of things used by Mont Pelerin society where first proposed by progressive leftists but that left critics of the left also tend to be soft on this by just embracing the right-wing recuperation, you start to see why I insist on socialist independence.
Anyone who talks about sewer socialism and ignores the difference in the structure of city finance between 1880 to 1917 to totally reliance on bond market post world war 2 should be laughed out of the room at minimum. They are selling “Little Rock” candy mountain bs.
December 27, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Anyone who talks about sewer socialism and ignores the difference in the structure of city finance between 1880 to 1917 to totally reliance on bond market post world war 2 should be laughed out of the room at minimum. They are selling “Little Rock” candy mountain bs.
If one looks honestly at the history of communists post-1890, not a single group is not plagued by its own choices, and not a single group that has not oscillated wildly between determinism and voluntarism as a response. Yet people think quoting polemics solves these arguments.
December 27, 2025 at 11:18 PM
If one looks honestly at the history of communists post-1890, not a single group is not plagued by its own choices, and not a single group that has not oscillated wildly between determinism and voluntarism as a response. Yet people think quoting polemics solves these arguments.
Alasdair Roberts or Alasdair MacIntyre.
December 23, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Alasdair Roberts or Alasdair MacIntyre.
When my mother died, southerner she was, I gotten stop listening to Stan Rogers North West passage, Nova Scotia rock and Georgia red clay in my blood even if the desert had been my home since 2013 and the Sierra Madre cradling me.
December 23, 2025 at 9:38 AM
When my mother died, southerner she was, I gotten stop listening to Stan Rogers North West passage, Nova Scotia rock and Georgia red clay in my blood even if the desert had been my home since 2013 and the Sierra Madre cradling me.
The bodies of water that define my life: the Mississippi, the Nile; the hand of Franklin, the gulf Mexico, the creek they call the Jordan river.
December 23, 2025 at 9:38 AM
The bodies of water that define my life: the Mississippi, the Nile; the hand of Franklin, the gulf Mexico, the creek they call the Jordan river.
The mountains are my home. If you don’t love a landscape, I often wonder if you can fight for a people.
December 23, 2025 at 9:37 AM
The mountains are my home. If you don’t love a landscape, I often wonder if you can fight for a people.
Reposted by Nagarjuna's Middle Finger | VarnVlog
I have been making way through & really enjoying this series by Daniel Tutt & @varnvlog.bsky.social. Looking forward to part III.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMLI...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMLI...
Varn Vlog: Daniel Tutt and Varn on the Problems of Intellectuals, Part 2: Bourdieu Meditations
YouTube video by C. Derick Varn
www.youtube.com
December 22, 2025 at 6:07 PM
I have been making way through & really enjoying this series by Daniel Tutt & @varnvlog.bsky.social. Looking forward to part III.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMLI...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMLI...
The mountains are my home. If you don’t love a landscape, I often wonder if you can fight for a people.
December 23, 2025 at 9:35 AM
The mountains are my home. If you don’t love a landscape, I often wonder if you can fight for a people.
So thinking back to the conference in Idaho where I met Michael Brooks in person for the first time, a lot of weird internet shit came out of those attendees after Covid
December 20, 2025 at 10:29 PM
So thinking back to the conference in Idaho where I met Michael Brooks in person for the first time, a lot of weird internet shit came out of those attendees after Covid
Being steady and being willing to be unpopular but have a long memory has served me well in both media and activism. That said, if I made my living in either, the incentives wouldn’t cut this way.
December 20, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Being steady and being willing to be unpopular but have a long memory has served me well in both media and activism. That said, if I made my living in either, the incentives wouldn’t cut this way.
Ad honimem requires the attack on character to be irrelevant to context for it to be a valid informal logical fallacy. ;)
December 20, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Ad honimem requires the attack on character to be irrelevant to context for it to be a valid informal logical fallacy. ;)
Reposted by Nagarjuna's Middle Finger | VarnVlog
Early civilizations attributed winds to the moods of gods, seeing them as signs of punishment or favour.
"Virtually no secular civilization in ancient times ever conceived of a rational explanation until Aristotle, who wrote extensively about why the wind blows", author Simon Winchester explains.
"Virtually no secular civilization in ancient times ever conceived of a rational explanation until Aristotle, who wrote extensively about why the wind blows", author Simon Winchester explains.
Lessons on Climate Futures from Wind’s Tempestuous Past: An Interview with Author Simon Winchester
A newly published history of the wind turns to sea gods and early wind turbines to show how today’s challenges to renewable energy repeat a centuries-old pattern.
www.thexylom.com
December 14, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Early civilizations attributed winds to the moods of gods, seeing them as signs of punishment or favour.
"Virtually no secular civilization in ancient times ever conceived of a rational explanation until Aristotle, who wrote extensively about why the wind blows", author Simon Winchester explains.
"Virtually no secular civilization in ancient times ever conceived of a rational explanation until Aristotle, who wrote extensively about why the wind blows", author Simon Winchester explains.
