Ray Peat was a Stalinist
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I personally wouldn't call him a Stalinist even though he said positive things about Stalin and the Soviet Union, because it makes him seem like much more of a follower and disciple than he was. He said positive things about Jesus too, but I wouldn't say that makes him a Christian. He was also influenced by anarchists like Kropotkin, Tolstoy and Bookchin. He talked about how people could function without government in this interview:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190126100639/http://www.visionandacceptance.com/organizing-the-panic-an-interview-with-dr-ray-peat/I would rather not put a label on him, though, because he didn't label himself.
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I found Ray Peat’s ideas outside of health to be often too wacky and wrong to be seriously considered. He was a Stalinist, a communist, and anti-Libertarian.
I find it curious that he was, but I’ve seen how we see things though our own lenses and interpret everything accordingly.
My heroes in history are Mises and Rothbard. Rothbard in particular was an amazing historian and a great writer.
I recommend his lectures that are on YouTube also. Start with the one on the Progessive Era.
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@Hando-Jin said in Ray Peat was a Stalinist:
Anybody got any links to Ray's comments on either Stalin or Lysenko? I don't have all of his newsletters.
Lysenkoism was dreadful doctrinaire and stopped good research from happening.
But the idea of Lysenko is now taken up as mostly correct, in the form of epigenetics.
Dr. Peat was right about that. People are so indoctrinated into the idea of genetic determinism that science has already disproven 30 years ago.
I hear it all the time. “My father had a bad heart. It runs in my family.” This is what virtually EVERYONE thinks.
Dr. Peat opened my eyes to the epigenetic role that means we can be free from much of our genetics. And that is essentially what i think of when I think of Lysenko.
People make fun of Lysenko today, but look at what happens to dogs in captivity versus dogs in the wild. Epigenetic changes are dramatic and fast, and genetics doesn’t account for it.
I also think the idea of randomness in genetic mutations is probably completely false. I read a fantastic book called Quantum Evolution that argues for an intelligence to mutations using quantum mechanics — essentially all possible mutation worlds manifest like a quantum computer, and the “best” one is the one tha manifests in our reality. So evolution is very intelligent.
I wish I could find the website Dr. Peat mentioned on intelligent cells. It is an old website but still up. It shows how single cells are very intelligent, have something like eye sight, etc.
Dr. Peat believed that animals are intelligent, and cells, and that taught me a. Lot. I just ignore his Stalinist views and his views on economics and politics.
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@Hando-Jin I'm super stoked to hear Peat was a fan of Bookchin. He's one of my primary political influences. I just searched the transcripts and in GE 34 found... "Have you read any of Murray Bookchin's books or articles? He was a good libertarian." RP
Do you know of anywhere else he discussed Bookchin? I remember him coming up briefly in one of Ray's last interviews. As I recall he just acknowledged that he was familiar with his work.
Bookchin was raised by stalinists. He ended up being a critic of both marxism and anarchism and created a secret 3rd thing...libertarian municipalism and social ecology. (libertarian in the leftist sense). Post-Scarcity Anarchism is an amazing book. After bookchin's death, his ideas gained physical territory and were put to the test as he's one of the primary ideological influences of Rojava.
I wouldn't necessarily call Ray a Stalinist either - the definition of which is not even clear. But like any good student of proletarian liberation, we find respect, fascination, and lessons in Stalin and the Soviets.
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@Ecstatic_Hamster Here's the website 'Cell Intelligence' http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/htmltxt.htm
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@buckminster said in Ray Peat was a Stalinist:
@Ecstatic_Hamster Here's the website 'Cell Intelligence' http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/htmltxt.htm
oh man, thank you thank you!
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good thread
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@Ecstatic_Hamster said in Ray Peat was a Stalinist:
@Hando-Jin said in Ray Peat was a Stalinist:
Anybody got any links to Ray's comments on either Stalin or Lysenko? I don't have all of his newsletters.
Lysenkoism was dreadful doctrinaire and stopped good research from happening.
But the idea of Lysenko is now taken up as mostly correct, in the form of epigenetics.
Dr. Peat was right about that. People are so indoctrinated into the idea of genetic determinism that science has already disproven 30 years ago.
I hear it all the time. “My father had a bad heart. It runs in my family.” This is what virtually EVERYONE thinks.
Dr. Peat opened my eyes to the epigenetic role that means we can be free from much of our genetics. And that is essentially what i think of when I think of Lysenko.
People make fun of Lysenko today, but look at what happens to dogs in captivity versus dogs in the wild. Epigenetic changes are dramatic and fast, and genetics doesn’t account for it.
I also think the idea of randomness in genetic mutations is probably completely false. I read a fantastic book called Quantum Evolution that argues for an intelligence to mutations using quantum mechanics — essentially all possible mutation worlds manifest like a quantum computer, and the “best” one is the one tha manifests in our reality. So evolution is very intelligent.
I wish I could find the website Dr. Peat mentioned on intelligent cells. It is an old website but still up. It shows how single cells are very intelligent, have something like eye sight, etc.
Dr. Peat believed that animals are intelligent, and cells, and that taught me a. Lot. I just ignore his Stalinist views and his views on economics and politics.
I'm not much of a Bookchin. I think Bob Black's criticisms of him were pretty decent.
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it may be worthwhile to note that what's going on now with various nefarious elements attempting to attack Ray's legacy as soon as he died is quite similar to what Khrushchev did to Stalin
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@Hando-Jin I think Bookchin's attack on 'lifestyle anarchism' (and inventing the phase I believe) was stupid, with lasting repercussions. I'm a bit familiar with the bob black criticism but have not read it directly. Searching it now I see...
Chapter 1: Murray Bookchin, Grumpy Old Man
lol so true. Such a curmudgeon. None the less I love his work. It was good enough to inspire Abdullah Ocalan and create a multi-ethnic direct democracy in northeast syria. Much to glean and learn. Not many theorists can say they have had their work attempted at scale. Despite its problems, mostly caused by external aggression.
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@eric 100%. It is very bizarre and disturbing. Defending ray's legacy is my primary motivation for even engaging in the peatarian community. I have such a deep respect for Ray Peat. He has improved my life so temendously, I owe him a debt of gratitude. It pains me deeply to see his work get so disrespected and tarnished by those trying to hijack it for nefarious aims. It's so spooky and weird, that it can be so distorted to such a degree. It's not hard to imagine it's orchestrated in some sort of cointelpro fashion to destroy his work and potential impact. Not sure, hard to wrap my head around.
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@buckminster I agree. As paranoid as it sounds I think it's pretty easy to do a rough accounting of how much money certain interests would stand to lose if Ray's work was accepted into the mainstream. The pharmaceutical industry alone has a total value of 1.2 trillion dollars. It would certainly be worthwhile to fund a disinfo agent or two.
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On-topic, we may wonder if Alexa has Stalinist tendencies:
Why Stalin is a God | Alexandra Elbakyan
"[..]even if nobody considered Stalin to be a God, he was a real God - in the truest sense of the word, as we can see from the high level of love people had towards him. Someone may disagree by saying: there was a censorship in the Soviet Union, and it was impossible to say anything against Stalin - therefore everyone loved him. However, we must admit: the censorship was done by the people - there must be someone who sends you to prison if you don't love Stalin. Stalin obviously couldn't do this himself, on the contrary, that was done by other people for Stalin, because he was loved very strongly."
Hi, rodent. I hope that you're doing great.
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Ray apparently spoke with many folks or read different works to get a more rounded view. From what i gather, things are not exactly the way they've been presented to us over the years. Stalin was obviously no angel, but Ray is being Ray here imo, he had dug up some underlying info.
Stalin's current western reputation is a bizarre product of the losing faction Trotskyites (part of today's NEO's) and Krushchev revisionism. Sour grapes anyone. He was actually liked by many Americans and other westerners up until the mid to late 1940's.
Domenico Losurdo, critical of many including Stalin, presents the detailed nuances of Soviet Union politics before and during Stalin's time.
Enjoy: Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend, by Domenico Losurdo
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@buckminster You are not being even a tad bit paranoid. It is logical to conclude that Peat's legacy and work is deliberately being diminished.
Did you see this history of Blake College?
https://t3uncoupled.substack.com/p/ray-peat-a-history-of-blake-college?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post -
It didn’t end well for Madalyn Murray O'Hair
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I would challenge anyone to define Stalinism for me.
If it's just 'supports Stalin' you have to stop using the word if you want to be perceived as even remotely intelligent because that's not what you use an '-ism' for.
Ray was simply not a liberal or a nazi, anyone with a clear mind and a strong metabolism that is politically engaged in his generation defaulted to supporting the Soviet Union, especially at its zenith under Stalin.
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@BioEclectic said in Ray Peat was a Stalinist:
Stalin's current western reputation is a bizarre product of the losing faction Trotskyites (part of today's NEO's) and Krushchev revisionism. Sour grapes anyone. He was actually liked by many Americans and other westerners up until the mid to late 1940's.
Domenico Losurdo, critical of many including Stalin, presents the detailed nuances of Soviet Union politics before and during Stalin's time.
Enjoy: Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend, by Domenico Losurdo
Exactly!
Some other works:
Ludo Martens, Another view of Stalin
Grover Furr, Khruschev Lied -
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@Norwegian-Mugabe You cannot interfere
