I'm used to fiction where one character is always at the focus.

PDFs and audio would help. I not good at finding them.

So yaa, how do you like balance work-life-balance and interests. I'm considering a job or however to put it that is known for awful work-life-balance, but is also incredibly interesting, but I'm not sure if it's worth it😩

Like I do want to get married and have a family and such at some point, but that is in no way guaranteed, especially not considering my circumstances, meanwhile focusing on career seems more safe I suppose😵‍💫

Basically I want some free ( both as in beer and freedom) stuff and plenty of it.

I'm a neurodivergent, asocial person. Always have been. Though i still have had a few friends during my life. I managed to get by for a while with just the 2-3 people I talk to, but recently I've started to get really lonely. The way i've made friends in the past has been someone approaching me, not the other way around though. I don't know how to make friends/acquaintances with other people on my own. Me growing up with the internet probably played a role in my lack of real life social skills, i'm guessing

i somehow just got a date with a cute boy !crush and i dont know how to do this well. it's in a week and i'm stressing so much because he's so sweet and i can't fumble this. I would never forgive myself. I need tips !cri

So far historically it was "they're not Christians", then it was "wrong location" (cause they wanted the land/resources), then it was "they're not the right race", then it was "wrong economic system", and now it's "wrong culture"; what's next do you think?

EDIT: By justifiable I don't mean it's actually justifiable, I mean most people will consider it justifiable.

This is not a bit. Dead serious. There is a luxurious hotel suite for a long weekend with whatever food, treats, toys and equipment you both request.

They are you from another reality where some mundane event is slightly different on the other side of the solar system yet to reach us. They are not a clone or time traveller. Everyone goes back to their own reality at the end. They are you with all of the benefits no complications or ethical questions.

And just in case no they cannot be gender swapped. (Curious why you might ask this? Hmm)

Do you have sex?

You can do other stuff of course if so comment. I love my ace comrades.

I'm a little unclear on how the furry identity works. Is it like an LGBT+ thing where you just are this thing regardless of your feelings or desires, or does wanting to be a furry make you one? Like, I've fought against being trans much of my life, but now I see I pretty much always was. But I don't know if liking the puppygirl idea makes me a furry, or if that's something I have to have always been? (this is not a reaction to a recently popular puppygirl, I've meant to ask this for a while) I also may be terribly misunderstanding furries; that's a taboo subject where I live, so I don't know much.

Please help I’m so confused. Does it have to do with the struggle sesh?

I don't plan on doing much gaming on it. Just regular laptop things.

TrueAnon girl ghosted me

But yeah she plays DE. What should I'd do? Should I ask her what her copotype is?

I promise I'm not doing a bit, this actually happened.

I've noticed this on books, paper packaging, and clothes — anything that will absorb an odor, basically. Is this some sort of chemical treatment they use in warehouses, or... ?

I've done lots of radical body positivity and like my body when fat. But I can't bring myself to like fat on my face.

I grew up not liking my face. When I look in the mirror, I sometimes try imagining the Fallout 4 video game menu where you have to customize a face in fine pixels. Most people's natural faces in real life would look stellar in the game. Natural-looking is simply stellar in Fallout.

This method seems to stop working for me when I notice the fat on my face. It makes me sad.

I just had to sit through an hour long presentation at my workplace by a top manager at a privatized public utility. This Boston Consulting-bred mf who probably makes six figures was talking about "reshaping the cost base" as a euphemism for major job cuts, while in the same breath bragging about being acquired by a Private Equity firm. He literally had a fucking bullet point about a highly unionized workforce being one of the main challenges facing the company.

I was struggling to even sit still, it was maddening. I made an effort to contain the rage, but even the few angry comments I made about it afterwards with my colleagues seemed to fall on deaf ears. I might have already jeopardized my job if rumor of them reaches the wrong people. Unfortunately my rent doesn't pay itself, and this is a relatively good job as far as they go.

How do you deal with the rage? How do you manage the anger internally when expressing it might genuinely lead to losing your job? I really tried to keep my mouth shut today, and I still kinda failed.

Anyone have any advice on just kind of hating people in general less? I look at people, I know they’re huge on religious doctrines and societal models I have no place in, and I just can’t see any good in them worth considering. I try to go outside and connect with people, but everyone looks like a 4channer, or someone two slights away from becoming a 4channer. I can’t restrain the fear or loathing. It’s like the past twenty years have reduced my very capacity for compassion and my capacity to respect anyone period to molten slag.

Heteronormative society and all who uphold it fucking blow, but I’m expected to keep it in my pants re: how and when I take it out on them.

The idea that I’m referring to is basically that MRAs/pick-up artists and anti-abortion social conservatives are the same group of people with no meaningful distinctions between them.

An example of where I’ve seen this idea expressed:

You know those left-leaning meta subreddits like r/therightcantmeme and r/shitfascistssay that are largely about posting dumb right-wing stuff and then dogpiling on it together?

Earlier this year I saw a post (now deleted) on one of those subreddits where the content of the post was a manosphere-type meme that depicted a (attractive) man who got his (attractive) girlfriend pregnant and then, with help from his male friends, fled the country so that he wouldn’t have to pay child support. And the general tenor of the meme was supportive of this; basically the conceit was “being hot and scoring lots of noncommittal sex with hot women, without any concern for their well-being, is all that matters”.

Obviously this is an offensively terrible way to think about women, so the post got a lot of interaction and comments. But some of the comments caught my attention, because they tied in anti-abortion politics in a way that I think is kind of off the mark. One commenter said “The same guys who are anti abortion are the guys who laugh at stuff like this” and got a lot of upvotes.

I replied to them with something like “Huh? No, I don’t think that’s accurate. This is not a meme that anti-abortion social conservatives would find funny. This is a meme for ‘players’ who are misogynist in a lot of other ways, but generally support legal abortion.”

My comment got heavily downvoted. There were a couple of people who agreed with me and replied things like “lol you’re getting downvoted but you’re exactly right”, but those people got downvoted too.

Overall it seemed like the vast majority of people in that comment section disagreed with me, and believed that there really is no significant difference between anti-abortion Christian social conservatives and the MRA/PUA/Andrew Tate crowd.

I still think I'm right about this, though. What are your thoughts?

How commie should I be? We're supposed to have a book swap and idk if it's NYT bestsellers or Lenin. They've got a lot of "we'll take your name off if you're scared to associate with our group", but looking through the docs and all seems like completely normal stuff.

Keep it light plz. For example, I am terrible terrible bowler. Just absolutely piss poor even compared to equally casual people, any time there's been some kinda get together involving bowling I have come in last by a huge huge margin. I need the bumpers. I can bowl a perfect game in wii sports tho.

FPS games as well, not really a fan and have never ever been able to hack it at them. After graphics got good enough I didn't find the perspective disorienting team sticks became the norm and I'm left handed so that was a weird thing to adjust to for me and by then it was 360 era CoD time and I wanted nothing to do with it and would just die 4 seconds into each spawn anyway.

It could have been called romantically "bonds of blood between brothers", but still

Asking from a friend here...

Edit: this situation has now been resolved, according to anonymous sources... only vigorous self-crit and two fights.

For legal purposes, this is a joke.

What brought me here: \ When breadtube became a thing around 2016 it was my refuge from the horrible reactionary shitshow the internet was at the time. It opened me to things further left than Obummer. I lurked on Reddits sorry excuses for leftist subs and heard them whisper about the CTH sub as being "bad leftists" but they never explained what was bad about them so I checked for myself and checked out the podcast and was like "They aren't bad they're just a bit obnoxious." I didn't really hang out on r/CTH, only saw the occasional post, and I listened to the podcast every now and again (and not at all anymore, stopped listening after the 2020 primaries) and that was about it. Then r/CTH was banned, this place was mentioned and I got curious. It felt like I had finally found a place that wasn't going to demand I be civil towards Nazis. I wasn't going to be banned for saying "kill all slave owners." I also thought you guys were really funny. So yeah, Ironally r/CTH made you guys more appealing lmao. It also helped that you retained the "fuck being civil to horrible people" energy while at the same time attempting to make sure marginalised groups weren't thrown under the bus.

What made me stay: \ A community of weirdos that genuinely want to make the world a better place and stand up for their marginalised comrades. Whether it's the mutual aid comm helping people the best it can, the news comm shining a light on events the world tries to bury, or simply the movie comm providing a safe fun area to chill, I feel like this place provides something other places on the internet don't. It also is a place I feel like I can ask any questions about leftism and not be called an idiot. You guys taught me things ranging from practical stuff how to take part in my local org, to mundane things how to make a rad bean recipe. I think that's worth something. Also I still think you guys are hilarious.

EDIT: added some more context because I was reminded of stuff I had forgotten.

I'm a longbow person because I value quantity over quality.

Wtf should I say? Should I ask what her fave Brace rule is?

I try reading about the Secret Treaties in Wikipedia, but it's not super conclusive.

feels like a dumb question but I’m asking it unironically lol. If I alternate eyes when non stop posting will I reduce the damage to my vision 🤔

1. Cuttlefish (those guys are full of surprises and are really cute)

2. Rabbits (Watership Down core)

3. Crows (endlessly cool)

4. Otters (absolute lil guy energy)

5. Bears (tuba music)

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/210431

> This has been bothering me for a long time. A lot of this sounds like the videomaker just watched a documentary that had it out for the CPC and parroted the content verbatim with relatively little research into counter-theses. > > Obviously I support beating the shit out of fake martial artists who purport to turn you into a ninja god, and there are surely many snakeoil salesmen in China as there are in America who therefore should be beaten. It also seems perfectly plausible that a good con would be able to take cover under the CPC initiative for cultural revitalization in order to scam people, even if that went counter to the initiative's goals. > > But, the video seems to ultimately be aimed at smearing the CPC. For example, vaguely saying Xu "was made" to wear that clown makeup, not saying who made him, and adding in that same segment that the CPC docked his "social credit score", preventing him from taking some methods of transit. > > Who made him wear the makeup? Probably the con/dojo he was challenging or possibly the promoters of the fight, but by speaking in vagaries and not defining different institutions, the videomaker makes it sound like these cons are working for the CPC and it's the CPC that made him present as a clown. It's as though there's just some homogeneous "Chinese institution" that Xu is traveling around and fighting different agents of, like the plot of a weird martial arts film. > > Some things, like wiping social media, are really par for the course, but shutting his gym down and fining him massive amounts of money are included with no critical investigation of why they happened or even if they did, and are mentioned in the same breath as purely socially-driven harassment like the Taichi students obstructing him. It's all just unsubstantiated hearsay. > > It reminds me of how often western press will report on defectors saying they are being attacked by the government [of Bad Country] for speaking out when -- while they did speak out -- they also in many cases did horrible shit like chop their girlfriend to pieces or lead an ethnonationalist campaign. The treatment of Navalny by western press is probably the easiest example unless you want to go back to the "moderate rebels" or "brave mujahideen freedom fighters" eras. > > That said, getting good information on this as someone who doesn't speak Chinese is difficult, so I was wondering if other people here knew more about the story. > > If the timestamp doesn't work, the correct url is: ( https://youtu.be/gjbSCEhmjJA?t=1155 )

This org has been emailing me to apply for months. IDK how to feel about it. On one hand it's one of those things that probably looks good on a resume & being in D.C. would be sweet. OTOH this looks like a neoliberalism incubator... but I also need money.

For the purpose of miniature wargaming, I’m considering getting into 3D printing because there are tons of amazing sculpts I’d love to get my hands on.

A couple of questions, though

I’ll admit I know next to nothing about 3D printing, but I could spend up to 300 eurodollars (or a bit more) on a 3D printer. Are there any key things to consider when picking up a printer? I don’t need the cheapest model, as price isn’t the main reason I’m getting into 3D printing. I care quite a bit about the quality of the finished models.

I live in an apartment, so does this even work logistically? I’m aware there are some health hazards with resin/3D printing—how serious should my concerns be about that? (That’s why I’m asking here and not in a 3D printing subreddit, where folks might be biased.)

Are there any recommended communities or YouTube channels for 3D printing? As I mentioned, I’ll be using this primarily for gaming miniatures and possibly wargaming terrain, not for other 3D-printable items.

can someone please make a Handala emoji?

We know the heads of Marxism are usually Marx, Engels and Lenin, often plus Stalin and Mao.

!three-heads-thinking !stalin-cig !mao-wave

But who would be the five heads of revolutionary liberalism (before it became a totally bankrupt, anti-emancipatory, status quo project)?

My suggestion: John Locke, Thomas Paine, Robespierre, Toussaint, & Simon Bolivar

Also considered: Oliver Cromwell and Garibaldi

What should I actually do lol