Mark Rensema @M_Rensema@scholar.social
Research Master philosophy student at the University of Groningen focusing on the History of Modern Philosophy. Currently writing a thesis about Spinoza and social engineering.
Joined Mar 2020
Should I read Magna Moralia by Pseudo-Aristotle? Or is it basically an uninteresting addition to Aristotle? I am now reading through both the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics.
Mark Rensema
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You: I think the coffee maker is broken.
Me: Boost the confinement beam.
You: What? That's not...
Me: Transfer auxiliary power to shields.
You: You can't just say random-
Me: Run a level three diagnostic on the deflector array.
You: (sobbing) Stop...
Me: Make it so.
Mark Rensema
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And so in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority.
- V. I. Lenin, State and Revolution (1917)Contrary to what moralists believe, it is not bad or disreputable to refuse to explain and justify one's normative commitments, especially to hostile audiences. It may not be persuasive to just say "x is good, and y is bad" without giving reasons, but it is not deficient to do so. In fact, it may be virtuous if you believe there is something wrong with, or problematic about, being prompted to legitimize one's moral beliefs locally.
Mark Rensema
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i could be a little more clear. i could be a little less opaque. i could be utterly translucent. i could be just see-through enough
Mark Rensema
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Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.
- Karl Marx, German Ideology (1845)Performative queerness is not queerness. Queerness involves a wound, it is something inflicted on you, not something that you can "perform" your way into.
Today Foucault taught me the concept of 'Ubu' or 'Ubu-esque' and, what can I say, it has really enriched my life. 
Mark Rensema
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Keep a notebook where you write down your ideas, inspirations and wishes. Keep reading your old notes and improve upon them.
If something stays on the list for long enough, start working on it: you probably have given it enough thought now and it clearly seems worth it.
Mark Rensema
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Redefining the term "Eurosceptic" to mean, Someone who doesn't believe in the existence of Europe
Thinking about that time when I was still an undergrad and one of my professors forbade me from saying anything during a discussion about the use of intuitions in philosophy, because I was an "unrepentant rationalist". 😂
Mark Rensema
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What if you were just going about your day and then the narrator said something
Do not conflate the theory of meaning and the theory of reference, or you'll be in a philosophical inferno of immense proportions in no time.
I read an angry response to a D&D stream that employed a theater-of-the-mind style of play aimed at the lack of minis and maps used in the stream. The dude was furious that the game did not use visual aids, because it was "not fun" like that. And I am like, "Whoa, man, maybe this isn't your type of game, but it is not wrong for people to just have fun with a story and their imagination, and nothing more". 😑
Perhaps the biggest piece of mystification in ethics is the talk of an 'ethical perspective,' as though there really is a natural, stable, universal, or even just easily identifiable perspective that has, in and of itself, a recognizably ethical character. Something like this is often assumed, but rarely explained or scrutinized; likely because it is an assumption that cannot survive much scrutiny to begin with.
Mark Rensema
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protip: if you have just been born and they're trying to assign you a gender, simply refuse to sign anything and ask for a lawyer.
Mark Rensema
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The recursive centaur: half horse, half recursive centaur
🎶 Heut' ist der Sozialismus Weltmacht!
Heut' stehen die Völker nicht mehr allein!
Drum fester die Einheit, der Kampf wird sich lohnen!
Dann wird in der Welt immer Frieden sein! 🎶
Mark Rensema
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Fair warning; Violence mention; I'm not actually going to do this, but you should know what you deserve
I will personally come to your house and punch you in the throat
If there is anti-queer violence in the news
And you're the one who says "The attacker was probably in the closet"
Straights—if you can believe it—can be hateful against queer people
Research Master philosophy student at the University of Groningen focusing on the History of Modern Philosophy. Currently writing a thesis about Spinoza and social engineering.
Joined Mar 2020
