chatting to laura greenaway

laura greenaway

i got a nice message from laura on facebook. you can read our message exchange bellow. not sure if i am mad, we are both mad, or we are not mad and everybody else is? you tell me…


Nikola Tosic
10 August at 23:20

hi laura
have we met in person? somewhere sometime
nice to meet you


Laura Greenaway
Today at 00:33

hi nikola,

no, we haven’t met in person…but it is nice to meet you too.

i am a triathlete and was looking at blogs…and stumbled upon your triathlon team site, and your say no to drafting site, and then your many personal sites and found you quite insightful and hilarious. your motivation posters and blogs made me laugh out loud many times. i even love your rules of communication…you are right up my alley…haha.

cheers!

Laura


Nikola Tosic
Today at 00:47

cool laura
thanks a lot
its rare to find people who understand my humor
im a very funny person but somehow people think im super serious :)
even this is maybe a joke – i dont know

what do you do?
are you a triathlete?


Laura Greenaway
Today at 00:59

no…i love dry, sarcastic humour…honestly, everything i’ve looked at has made me laugh so far…haha

i am a history teacher by profession but also a coach and amateur triathlete/runner…my brother is one as well and we started up a triathlon team this year. i do sprints, he does IM. he is always reading pros’ blogs and got me onto them too.

i just read your political views…i have always envisioned a more communist utopia…but your philosophy is interesting.


Nikola Tosic
Today at 01:09

i think communism is not well understood by people. communists were very good at marketing and targeting those who did not need much more than a pamphlet and a speech.

communism is a switch of power from those who own property to those know know how to use property. in reality its from capitalists to scientists. communism in essence is another form of totalitarianism but by scientists.

if you lived in a socialist (more or less communist country) you would feel this. i was only a kid when socialism was at full strength here but we still feel the sentiment.

anarchism, especially anarcho individualism, is more closer maybe to religions like christianity as it focuses on morality of an individual. anarcho syndicalism is maybe closest to communism (marx drew inspiration from it i think).

so communism will pretty much always fail and is a step back, especially compared to democracy. it is about few people deciding for the good of the others. it is quite dangerous and based on arrogance and lack of respect for individuals.

anarcho individualism – at least i use this term to describe things this way – is about a process of learning about your own responsability. it does not mean you do well but that you at least try, as an individual. and if everybody tries, one day, maybe million years from now, human society will be more relaxed.

it is about belief that changes start from individual people, that each person has to change for society to change. and that this takes thousands of years. if you are nice to your neighbors today this will improve the society of the year 20 000 :)

communists and anarcho syndicalists are obsessed about changing things during their life times and this is too aggressive and too quick (revolutions). revolutions are cool if they are small and personal, not millions of people going to war and demonstrations and other extreme stuff.

unfortunatelly people always think of anarchists as anarcho syndicalists and assasinators from 19th century and such things. the troublemakers.


Nikola Tosic
Today at 01:10

sorry had to write that :)


Laura Greenaway
Today at 01:20

haha…that’s ok.

when i debate with my students…they are all capitalist…i usually take the most left position advocating a long slow march to communism…but know there are still issues with power. i actually have never given much thought to anarchism as i guess i still hold some stereotypical textbook definitions. it’ll take me a while to digest all that info you just wrote…haha.


Nikola Tosic
Today at 01:30

yeah

i do not know why people always talk about either capitalism or communism.

first i do not understand how these two are contradictory – communism has capital no? a lot of it in fact.

its a conflict between democracy and communism and communism is not democratic – it is totalitarian with a lot of marketing around it like self management in companies (my father had to work with that).

also communists always complain about rich people in capitalism while in communism there were extreme concentrations of wealth. communists created these ultra mega huge companies that probably make wall mart look like a local grocery store. even serbia had these huge companies and these were essentially controlled by few people (again who pretended to know whats good for the rest due to their scientific education).

when i was a kid we could own apartments but we might not own the right to use an apartment. meaning scientists in the state could decide it is better for the society that we live in another town and would tell someone else to live in our place. thats a good example how communism and socialism worked. probably most totalitarian society ever in the history of man kind thanks to clever propaganda. also biggest concentration of wealth as capital was much more centralized in socialism and capitalism than in democratic capitalism.

in the same time not many talk about anarchism which is an ideal state of society – if everybody takes perfect responsability for their actions there is no need for false hierarchies and people can live in a much more relaxed and peaceful society, much more free. close to ideal. but this will happen only in the far far far future.

talk to kids about anarchism as it is a model ideal society, on which most other are based, especially communism which stole a lot of ideas but only for propaganda, not for execution. ok they took some ideas from syndicalists and thats it.

also problem is that when people talk about anarchism they talk about ancient history or crazy people like uni bomber (famous for his anarcho primitivist views and manifesto).

focus on current anarchist theories and studies. anarchism is best represented in science fiction anyway :)

again i wrote a lot :)


Laura Greenaway
Today at 01:50

i just feel bad for writing so little…haha.

i’ve been taught that the communism that you experienced was not marxism…more like stalinism/totalitarianism as you describe. i guess my view was definitely more marxist…when i think of ‘communism’ i don’t envision the ussr or china.

the textbook my school uses simply links anarchism to a series of political assassinations at the turn of the 20th century…like the crazy ppl you mention.

what science fiction is anarchist? i read some stuff describing star trek as a ‘communist’. mainly due to the lack of money…there is still a hierarchy of power…but supposedly they all work for the good of the federation haha.


Nikola Tosic
Today at 01:50

i wrote that for myself as well, ill use it in a post tomorrow
thanks


Nikola Tosic
Today at 01:58

please dont feel like you have to write just cause i write. its 2am here, im listening to some nice music and i felt inspired to write. also i type very very fast so if it seems like a lot its just a minute or so for me.

anyway…

i dont see much difference between marxism, stallinism, socialism, communism, its just variations to the same theme which is centralization of everything in a point based on science. instead of business people they wanted scientists to control stuff.

and this is a modern active idea as in usa, sweden, germany, france, most democratic countries apply a lot of socialist methods – they try to control economy and such through science. only it is much more covert. sometimes it works out sometimes not. they just got much better at communicating it – no need for fancy ideologies and fascinating statements, its just some people somewhere doing work. usa especially is super socialist/communist etc especially now with these bailouts i guess. few people decided how common wealth is used for greater good(?).

as for anarchism – they they present it always as either femminists or assasinators :) what can one do – its a tradition from 19th century. monarchists were smart – they made the word anarchist synonimous to chaos. when u say anarchy in most languages people get scared and think of a mess, not of a perfect society. while the word actually was invented to represent an idea of a perfect future human society.

anarchism is the one which suggested no money so star trek is anarchist more than socialist in this aspect. however i think the idea of no money is stupid, people have something against money cause they do not like the rich and its a tradition to hate the rich. money is good, it makes things simple. how else will we trade?

i think a lot of positive futurist visions are anarchist. any time there is less false authority and people can relax more, like no borders, more nations mingling, less rules on who can do what etc… thats getting closer to anarchism.


Nikola Tosic
Today at 02:02

but in star trek they are not allowed to drink beer right? which is super totalitarian and not anarchist? why would they not be allowed to drink beer – its bizarre?

its hard to say any system is just one system – its always a mix of a bunch of stuff. calling anything anarchist, socialist, democratic whatever is weird cause modern systems i think are a mix of a lot of things. eclectic. unless they feel like they have to do some cheesy propaganda.

anyway… why am i writing all this to you? i am weird

ill go to bed now

ill post this conversation on my blog tomorrow, if you agree(?), its interesting how intense i am about this stuff at 2am. we just met and i wrote all these bizarre essays. i really need to train more, i obviously have extra energy.


Laura Greenaway
Today at 02:14

haha…you are very intense…it has been interesting and entertaining (and has given me a lot to think about).

you can post it if you’d like!


Nikola Tosic
Today at 02:16

thanks

im not usually intense, just the mood im in now

i guess i used you to channel all this

hope you do not mind

good night