SupersonicRobotic said:
hahah wow, so youre not willing to take a whole look at the picture either along with Ayn Rand? progress, technology and art have been phony from their origins. theyre both dependent on division of labor, complete mediation in a world of symbols (time, etc... all pumping you in the butt for capital and production.) and dividing up the world into a distant relationship of culture vs. nature. what a complete phony ideology that doesnt even look at autonomous foraging/non-agricultural peoples that lived outside of many of these constructs until they were slaughtered or assimilated in the name of "progress." in fact, that makes the whole ideology of progress inherently genocidal of another economy. thats just fine though cause its for capital and ayn rand's lame vision.
what the hell is positive about that other than you masturbating on messageboards and buying dumb metal records while paying bills? can we please have more?
You make an excellent point. Absolutely nothing is authentic. There is no predetermined point to the universe, no why. All ideas created by humans are inherently inauthentic and artificial, merely conventions, without exception. Self, economy, progress, art all of them conventions created by humans.
But, that's all we've got. So what makes one convention better than another? Nothing. All we know is we like some more than others.
I like the convention of art (this includes music, literature, painting, drawing, theater et cetera). It makes me feel emotions, it works my brain, it makes me happy (all of which are mere conventions!). Progress is kind of a vague word that I think needs defining with what it exists in relation to. In the case of art, I feel that progress is essentially as simple as coming up with interesting ideas. You can learn from past art and use that to inspire you to create other interesting art.
I like Science. Humans are Informavores, over all it is pretty damn satisfying to work your brain and learn stuff, even if it has nothing to do with anything. Learning about the physics of stars and black holes gets me excited, and when I gain more knowledge I feel better. Progress in Science is making new discoveries and building on the ideas we understand today, through scientific method, impirical knowledge and inductive reasoning.
Technology is just kind of a manifestation of science. It's just plain neat (at least that's how I feel about it). I mean just look at us communicating on the web (which is a pretty exciting idea for any informavore)! Not to mention how much technology has added an entire new potential to art. Also it has made further scientific discoveries possible.
So when I say progress, this is specifically what I mean. Those are the reasons why I feel those specific conventions are worthwhile. Again, it's useless arguing what is phony, because everything you think is phony, and so is everything I think. You can only really argue what seems more worthwhile.
Anyway, I also feel that capitalism sufficiently supports these three ideas. However there are plenty of other things that I think are worthwhile that are certainly far beyond the reach of capitalism. Capitalism is in no way the be all and end all. Really nothing is.
Or is this all about who insults who first? I hope it's not.
Anyway, you're great at tearing down capitalism, do you propose any ideas that you think are worthwhile?
....sorry about that 
...and we are the loyal fans 