General Discussion Thread - Juche 114, Week 16
Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
☭ Matrix homeserver and space
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I find it funny that the people in a country, who couldn't be arsed to mask up or follow basic safety rules during a global pandemic, deem themselves fit enough to fight an actual war
They can't stand the prick of a needle so they let their children die of preventable diseases but also think that they are the greatest nation in history and are the rightful world hegemon.
Happy Zimbabwe Independence Day, everyone
edit: also, this is my first post. hello, my name is Violet.
Hello violet,
You need to send me an animal video now does are the rules
'ello
I finally had my first Seder yesterday. It was also the first time that I had matzah, matzo ball soup, wine, and gefilte fish, all of which I enjoyed having. I tried to imagine myself being an ancient Hebrew who hastily escaped chattel slavery, but it was difficult when there was so much commotion in the room.
Above all, the Seder was about mourning the situation in Gaza, how they have little to eat and only salt water to drink. We took turns reading from a pamphlet about the situation there and why we could not in good conscience have a celebratory Seder like most other Jews would normally have. We weren’t miserable during the event, but being conscious of Palestinian suffering made the Seder very different: we all knew that Gazans were still going to be in agony after the Seder was over.
Despite the noise in the room (in between and after reading from the pamphlet), I managed to have a couple of conversations with the other guests. The one to my right was taciturn, but we talked a little about the Spanish State and the Jewish history there and in Morocco.
The one to my left was more energetic, and we talked about modern history, like the status of gay Jews in the Third Reich. I told him that I may well have written the first article specifically on the subject, and I wrote on a napkin where he could find the topic—https:lemmy.ml (I wish that I had been more specific)—and my telephone number. Later he agreed to take me home and we talked about historical conspiracies and other events in modern history, like the Fascist invasion of Ethiopia and how Imperial America forgave most of Fascist Italy’s WWI debt, which amazed him. He hasn’t tried to contact me yet, but I wish that we could speak again.
That's great! I had my first Seder with my (now) ex and her mom who was a Holocaust survivor. It turned out to be her mom's last Seder, we buried her not long after. Very poignant and I am so glad she passed without seeing nazis marching in her neighborhood
Everyone make sure to wish a great week to Oppo.
Btw, anyone familiar with millenial.chaos from TikTok? Or maybe anyone in his Discord? If not, maybe we could let them know we exist, because they seem to be a cool bunch.
Other than that, last saturday I attended the 31st congress of our party, which was overall a positive experience, even if just slightly tipping the scale. I'd appreciate other autistic people helping me with tips how they do fieldwork, being on the streets, talking to people, being observed and judged and so on. As well as, I'm wondering if there is anyone here, who can not do any type of party work like this, because if they'd do, they'd lose their jobs or be hated out of their local community. Cause these are the things I'm facing, but obviously I'm expected to perform and work for the party.
So true on the first part bestie
Yeah, that's him. My bad, didn't know he is here already. Very very good to see! Thank you for pointing it out! All is well, my mission is finished.
Fotos of Xi Jinping's reception in Vietnam!
While I don't make much money and can't afford to move out, I sometimes still feel guilt for not coming from a very poor background, even if my family isn't that rich, because then I tell myself that I can't be a true socialist. Does anybody else feel something similar?
I feel this way because my parents have a middle class income and they own their own house. My dad is a lower manager in healthcare, what is the marxist vision on that type of work? My mom also works in healthcare but as a worker.
I mean Che himself came from a relatively well off family, was studying to be a doctor, decided to fuck around traveling for a while like the rich kid he is and he became one of the most influential marxist figures there is. I think we should not let ourselves get hung up on puritan views of the ideal socialist because it is pointless to our cause.
It's always good to be aware of the privileges you may have but don't feel bad for having them per se. Just like poor people never asked to be (born) poor you didn't ask for being born into a middle class family, if that makes sense. What counts is that you found marxism and are contributing to achieving communism in this world.
Class traitors are every bit as helpful, it's just a thing where due to circumstance, it's not as expected that someone well-off will join a revolutionary cause against the furthering of their own position in class.
But also, I don't think having their own house makes them rich. It means they have a bit more to fear losing than some in a societal upheaval, but if they have to work to make a living, they are still working class. It's more the ones who own and rent out multiple properties, who own loads of stock, etc., who I'd expect are unlikely to ever change their ways and support a revolution, because their wealth is directly tied into the capitalist financial system and its exploitation.
Either way, you could be Bill Gates level of wealth background and still become a socialist. Unlikely if you were from a background that wealthy, but it's not impossible.
Marxism isn't about poverty worship, it's about ending exploitation. Being a rich fuck doesn't automatically make you evil or something. But you should try to minimize or end exploitation (if any, and as much as possible under a capitalist system). However, for some middle class nobody who doesn't have the MoP this basically doesn't mean anything.
Engles was rich as fuck.
Being poor doesn't make you a better socialist. Its is more noble to go against your own self interests to fight for the betterment of all people than it is to fight for your fair share.
First of all, if the majority of the earnings of your family come from their labor (wages, self employment, small businesses), doesn't matter if the earnings are small or high, your family is working class.
Secondly, doesn't matter even if you were born in a bourgeois family, socialists aren't like Nazis that strive for racial purity. As long as you share our values, meaning you understand that we need to end class exploitation and advance for a class-less society, you are our ally. In fact, we had some bourgeois class traitors to join our ranks, like Zhou Enlai and Friedrich Engels.
Beautiful 😌
God almighty, why was I cursed with the geopolitics autism?
Just be glad that it isn't the Conspiracy Theory autism. That shit will get you into the psych ward.
I'm against conspiracism and I'm Autistic af
I used to be the same way, tbh, but lately, I've been trying to learn more about domestic history near me.
I would like to talk against using derogation of autistic people, but the Canada actively promote ableism in Parkdale high school in Toronto city. The Parkdale school always held austistic students as scapegoat for all the deliquency problems by the second generation victims of Communism. With the help by violent childish victims of Communist, They create false paranoid false misconceptions about austictic people while pretending to help autistic students. Racism against disabled Hong Kongers in the Parkdale school are run rampart without restrainment, especially when the superintendent and head teacher of that school actively sponsor the hate crimes and sabotage the autistic programs for their criminal agenda.
I hope you all have a nice week :D
You have a great week too!
Same to you, bestie!
Question for Londoners and people who've been to London, is it actually that much of a piss-smelling shithole? That's basically all I've heard coming from friends who have gone there, which as someone from a fairly dirty third-world city, is surprising.
I've been to London twice, once as an exchange student for some time. Lived in Eltham actually. I've always thought it was a great city to live in. But that was around ten years ago, something like that. It faces the difficulty of every western city: overpriced, gentrified, housing shortage, etc.
I enjoyed the city very much. It is absolutely massive though so there is no 'one London' to speak about. Walking around Fulham is vastly different than walking around, idk, Hackney. The piss smell wasn't noticed by me at least.
Yes. I lived there for some years. The pungent urine aroma emitted from the entrance to Lancaster Gate Station will forever be etched into my mind
I've worked at a lot of different places, mostly commercial companies. I have never been closer to actually workers' mutiny than I have been at my current employer, the actual union. Our board of directors are absolute dictators and the working conditions are insane. They won't listen. They act like we are lunatics for some reason. No sympathy whatsoever for us. And we have had enough.
The comraderie this creates is nice though. Gives me energy.
Sadly mainstream lemmy has fallen to fucking crackkkers and fucking libs, but it warms my heart that they're getting fucked w/ 0 lube by MAGA while China is more relevant than ever
This spot is really nice but every time a different domain comes in here and says the dumbest shit I've ever heard I am reminded that the rest of lemmy is a lib-o-sphere. Honestly, what frustrates me to no end is that none of them bother to actually unlearn or suspend any of the beliefs they have for just a second incase it's a perspective you haven't considered before, to learn where they're coming from and actually then use your knowledge and your beliefs to form an analysis. I have to do this to listen to conservative dribbling and then to actually reach material concerns. These fuckers just spit out the most blatant sinophobic propaganda verbatim and just leave entirely; assuaged by their "superior liberal intelligence" compared to those "silly tankies".
So many drive-bys that sum up to absolutely nothing but getting dunked while they can maximize the self-stroke smugness.
Are MAGAts invading Lemmy?
It's funny how gender neutral bath- and restrooms are such a problematic thing for some while I have been going to them at campings for forever. Everyone has the same toilet and shower building, everyone uses them together and it works just like it is.
Bold of you to assume those complaining about them have ever been outside
Hello, all
Hello. you need to send me an animal video now does are the rules
At risk of sounding like a "I'm 14 and this is deep" kind of statement, I was thinking like, "If you were in hell, would the devil really say 'mwahaha, this is hell, suffer' or would he insist to you the whole time that it's heaven and you're taking it for granted."
I don't mean it as a literal theology question for people who believe in that stuff, but I think about it in relation to the US. I know there are worse places to be in terms of quality of life, such as some of the most imperialized nations, but the US may have the most intense contrast between propaganda that says "we're the best" and what the day to day is actually like. A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck but are told it's the greatest country or the like. People's options are narrowed by the limits of transportation (heavy reliance of cars), the intense competition of jobs, etc., while having a vast industry and culture of motivation "if you believe it, you can achieve it" kind of hype that is almost never about utilizing logistics or working together or leaning on each other (presumably cause that stuff is a bit too close to scary socialism, wooo). A lot of people are lonely and struggle to make friends outside of work, college, etc., but are told be an island unto themselves (in whatever variety of words you can think of).
In short, although USian people are broadly, as far as I'm aware, not starving yet (not saying there isn't anyone who is, just in the broader sense), they are probably broadly emotionally starved, communally starved, and other such forms of basic human needs that are less immediately obvious, but nevertheless part of any healthy society. But the solutions to these things would no doubt threaten the dam of anti-communism, so people get gaslighted about how good they have it instead and get fed constant narratives about how to be a better individual. Like imagine if you were actually literally starving and the ones with power over food, who can bring in an abundance of it, were telling you that you need to do these certain rituals to improve your appetite, so you can be strong with less food. It's such a bizarre "country" when you put it in perspective.
Edit: I feel like I posted something very similar to this in the past and I don't know if I'm actually remembering, or if it's just that the same general criticisms are very familiar. Maybe I need to touch grass lol.
I can tell you this, as a lifelong USian who has only been out of the country 2x (Scotland, and Canada)-- every time I see someone suffering on the news-- someone like, in Palestine, or the like-- I feel very bad for them but I also notice how they have family and friends surrounding them weeping with them. I am jealous of them for that. That's how isolated I am here as a leftist; no friends/family that I can even talk to here in the deep south. Not a single person I have met in this entire city I can talk to except on discord; and they can't even come to town to meet (too poor to afford a car). Talk about isolation, it's horrible. I am too poor to just move somewhere where I might find like minds and make community. I keep thinking about going backpacking across the US but I haven't got the courage up yet. I'm building up my fitness and saving up for camping gear, it's my last chance at finding someone somewhere I feel. Even when I lived in San Fran, Chicago, NYC etc the story was the same. Nothing but Liberals in the spaces I frequented. During the BLM protests I was participating in my ex (this is why she's my ex) said "I dont mind you going to those protests but DON'T BRING ANY OF THOSE PEOPLE HOME WITH YOU" -- this from a polish Jew from Argentina whose mom (a holocaust survivor) we'd just buried. Fuck me but it's lonely out here as an anarcho-communist
I'm sorry you deal with that. Personally, I don't have it quite that bad in terms of isolation, but ideologically, it is similar. I'm the odd one out in people I'm closest to, having the views I do. And though I'm with some family, it doesn't feel how I expect it would in a culture that intrinsically values family and community. I don't want to get into too much personal detail about it here, but I'm sure you are familiar with the nuclear family standard of how things are in the US. To the point that ones who stick around family more and longer are probably the odd ones, compared to most other cultures. So instead of feeling comforted by it, at this point in my life I more just feel like there's something wrong with me.
But yeah, I think the impact of loneliness is underestimated sometimes and emotional pain is a real kind of pain. Not that it's a competition who is suffering more or less and in what ways, but just that it is something to recognize as a real harm that's being done.
Oh and best of luck with your backpacking goal.
I want to start being more active for my union, FNV. I want to go to more events they organise, and I'm going to ask working class friends and family around me if they want to join. Since my party BIJ1 doesn't really work that much with the unions I'll have to do it myself.
I got another guy mad enough to start digging through my old posts to look for things to dunk me on. I think that's a sign of victory, making him waste his own time.
Good job. Maybe while he is digging around in your old posts he'll get overwhelmed with based ideas.
Feels like things have been getting more and more unhinged lately.
The time of monsters is really setting in isn't it.
The time of monsters began with countries having borders I feel
I appreciate the honesty of it. All these years of barely contained insanity finally coming out for all to see.
Hey, my ko-fi fundraising is almost complete. 55% out of $500.
Bit of a vent post. I tend to have a thing where (with very few exceptions) I avoid anything that has MTX in it because: 1) I know they tend to operate on exploiting impulsive spenders, 2) I know the design of a product nearly always necessitates being made worse to accommodate them, so that people have an incentivize to buy them, and 3) I know they can get in my head, personally, in spite of being overall frugal.
And I also got into a hobby of learning languages with the help of gamified language apps. Those with any familiarity with them can probably guess where this is going. I've had more than one time I liked an app and then it added MTX so, due to the above, I had to quit. And even when I can find more that don't have them at the offset, it's getting to the point where I don't feel like I can trust any of them in the long-term. Or in some cases, the apps are just silly overpriced for what they offer.
I still have one that I use for helping to learn Chinese, TalkMe, but I don't know if that will eventually go the same way as the others. It's just very frustrating. Oh and this isn't even getting into other kinds of changes that I've seen happen, like UI overhauls that make a unique app look like a Duolingo clone. Or revamps of achievements that mess with what you already had, trivializing the point of it being gamified to motivate you. And this is on paid products too, not free stuff where you'd expect the "you're the product if it's free" capitalist thing. These are subscription-based apps that it keeps happening to me and they all want to be Duolingo I guess. It just hits home how frustrated I get with capitalism in general and the nauseating behavior (that seems worse in the digital space) where companies can never sit still with a consistent profitable business model and have to "keep growing" to "be competitive". But if they happen to ruin things for existing customers along the way, I guess that doesn't matter as long as the God of Profits is fed.
After the drought we are seeing rain finally, be it ever so slightly. But the drought and the winter did make me forget what a humid hell it can be here, in the swamp. The gym is a nightmare and it's not even summer yet.
We are on the other side of summer and just got the first decent bit of rain in months. Summer seemed to last an extra month and a half and then suddenly the temperature dropped 10 degrees.
What are some alternatives to Reddit that are more popular than lemmy?
Nothing really ...
Hackers News I guess, but that's pretty niche.
Edit: by reddit alternative I assume you mean a threaded long-form platform
More popular? Hexbear perhaps?
Could someone please refer an article or something to me so I can understand what is going on with Chinas youth unemployment?
Most metrics include those under 18 (most sources say 16-24) to make China look bad. It’s a good thing that most minors don’t have to work.
It's not normal for college aged adults in China to work in the first place. They're all studying hard. What a random metric to look at.
Wait... you're telling me this whole time the big fuss was about the 16-24 demographic in one of the most studious countries on the planet having low employment rates? Fuck me man. News outlets were talking about it like it was under 30s. Well glad I asked lol
So, in I think 2021 North and South Korea were about to sign an agreement which would include an end to war. Then I think Sullivan wrote on behalf of the US that they do not agree with it fully and that was the end of it. Does anyone have a link perhaps?
who is this youtuber itsagundam
I've decided, after some thinking, that Marxist Rifle Association are probably NOT PatSocs or MAGA coms.
I don't know about the Red Rifle Collective.
Alhamdulillah we have your approval 🙏 Literally take one look at the subreddit, I don't know why you thought we were in the first place.
Okay, but I'm very leery of PatSocs and MAGA coms.
We've had many incidents where they invade and then I'm proven right about their influence.
Well, so it seems. Maybe I'm just being arrogant.
Vijay Prashad will come to my city in two weeks, excited to see what he will say.
Starting up a fire within the Union to strike against the new government plans affecting my job. Let's not have them have any rest 🔥
Which city, if you don't mind me asking? One in the USA?
Antwerp in Belgium
He's from Antwerp