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
☭ Theory discussion group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml
☭ Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive
Can we get some fun stats and stuff from Lemmygrad over the years? I think it would be cool to see things like change in monthly active users, when the spikes were and what drove them, which communities became more/less popular, etc.
I think only instance admins have access to this info.
The only public thing I could find was monthly active users using a random website, but it only showed a few months (and I’m not sure it’s accurate).
I dont really understand how people just kinda…unconsciously move through life. “Politics” is one thing, i don’t really get how people aren’t thinking about their worldview daily. But even beyond that. Love, sex, drink, food, movies, games, etc. I’m not asking why people aren’t like me [in that I have niche tastes like Switchel and Italian post modern novels] but…I suppose I don’t understand why people aren’t curious. They don’t have to be curious in the same way as I am, but I just don’t understand how someone can “just” do something. “Just” read shlock novels and “just” cook the food you’ve eaten youre whole life, “just” play madden or call of duty, etc.
Eh, perhaps I’m jealous. A lot of these type of people seem really content, and I think the lack of contentness is one of the reasons why I’m so stressed all the time. I always have to have more, be better, know more, make more, etc. Nor can I really just repeat things. It’s rare that I’ll ever reread a book or replay a game in the same way. Im constantly looking for new recipes. Why reread Kokoro or Invisible Cities when I have so many books I have to read anyway? So maybe I’m just jealous
self and class consciousness is tough man, especially if you’ve lived that way your whole life, you learned to live like that from a very young age, and furthermore if you have childhood or other trauma that incentivizes you to keep yourself from becoming conscious in order to avoid processing painful memories without a sufficient framework (or social support) to do so. unless you have a material interest, a material need to become conscious, most people don’t, and that’s okay. that doesn’t make them any less rational
on the other hand, jealousy and lack of contentedness seem like internal contradictions for you to work on personally, regardless of how you relate to or interpret others. in my opinion jealousy is a cognitive error taught to us by liberalism, and the correct response is actually something more like inspiration or wonder. in my own personal experience, my feelings of jealousy were derived from insecurity (material, leading to psychological) that i experienced as a young child, and resolving those feelings has made it much easier to not feel jealous of others.
if you feel that the way you interact with things (from what you said, primarily how you consume media) is the only possible way for you, but you don’t feel content about it, i would explore why it is that you feel that way. if you feel that the way you interact with things is truly inferior than the approach of others for any reason, and yet you still feel compelled to interact with things in the way that you do, i would investigate why. and if you’re uncertain which of those two statements is more correct, i would investigate that as well.
i think it’s not enough to just point out errors of liberalism in the fashion of mao and expect them to be magically corrected. if we fully accept the rationality of every human (on an individual and class level), then there are always specific material reasons why we learned to think incorrectly, as it were. in the same way that diamat gives us the tools to investigate the history of society in terms of its internal contradictions, dialectical materialism also gives us the tools to investigate - and resolve - our own internal contradictions, resulting in more correct and less liberal cognition.
sorry for the text dump hahaha. it’s just something i happen to have been thinking a lot about lately.
Belgium is beefing with some US ambassador because they want to investigate religious circumcision within the Jewish community in Antwerp. Right now the rules are a bit meh and as a result Jewish kids have been infected with HIV and some died. For some reason a US ambassador finds this antisemitic lol.
The investigation came because Jewish people from the community filed a complaint themselves. I’m gonna spare you the gruesome details but if what is reported is true, it is absolutely sickening. Yet you have right wingers defending this with their lives like their biggest passion in life is mutilating childrens’ genitals.
Made a basic Marxist-Leninist study guide as a compliment to my more advanced one! The old guide is getting fleshed out with more dense but valuable works I had left out to keep it as a beginner list, so now the new list is more for brand new people. Feedback welcome!
Pings for those who requested
@Maeve@kbin.earth @prof_tincoa@lemmygrad.ml @DumbBrokeLeftist@lemmygrad.ml @narr1@lemmygrad.ml
Thank you very much!
No problem!
you’re such a dear thank you
No problem, that’s too kind!
Thank you! 🫡❤️
No problem! 🫡
i wish china and the dprk had more counterops/botfarms in the anglosphere internet than conspiratorial libs say they do. like cmon man please
DPRK bots save this sorry dead internet
ive said this a million times i’m so sick of anticapitalist posturingonline that isn’t ML. i’m so so so sick of it bro. because it ends up going full swede socdem (as Joseph Stalin said… socdem is the leftwing of WHAT) and then they go back to hating evil gommunist totalitarians and then it’s like, literally all revolutionary potential being squandered in front of u, and its worse that now they’re extra inundated with anti-AES talking points, and now are the most effective anti-communists of the bunch. yes, chomsky and other compatible left intellectuals were cultivated to produce such outcomes, but there’s also wholly organic examples
cool fluffy plants. I can’t seem to identify them.
In the Sopranos episode ‘Christopher’, there is a scene where a Turtle Islander (presumably Philip Ng) gets into an argument with somebody counterprotesting on behalf of Columbus Day, and the Turtle Islander yells ‘He fed our people to his dogs!’ to the counterprotesters.
I have a feeling that that was an oversight since Columbus never set foot in what we now call the United States, and I get the feeling that the Turtle Islander was from one of the northern tribes (the Mohawk, maybe?) rather than from the Caribbean. That said, if there are Turtle Islanders who sincerely see the Caribbeans as part of their people, that is really cool of them! I don’t expect many, sheerly due to the degrees of separation, but it is absolutely possible.
A lot of people are under the misconception that Columbus landed in mainland North America, and I would be unsurprised if there are even indigenous adults who think this, which leads me to pessimistically assume that the solidarity is unintentional. I would love to be wrong about this, though.
Bought my first pair of bouldering shoes after climbing for like a year. The difference from the rentable shoes is night and day (I know obvious) and the change in climbing is insane (also I know, obvious).
Heya
by IVE? sorry dumb reference. dont even like the song rlly but it’s the only use of the word heya that i immediately think of
Something clicked for me about ADHD after I saw this vid on youtube where somebody interviews two kids, one neurotypical and one ADHD, and the ADHD kid is asked at the end what they want to say to kids who don’t have ADHD about kids who do. And she has this heartbreaking line, “[They could help them by] telling them that whatever you do, it’s still right because you tried your best.”
I would say my thought applies more to disability in general under capitalism than ADHD specifically. But basically, it’s that people with ADHD, and people with disabilities more generally, work extra hard to manage only to still be seen as inadequate, inferior, or otherwise less-than-competitive for situations where steady, consistent labor is needed. It’s something that is probably kind of obvious to a lot of people with disabilities, but I guess for me, because ADHD is this mostly invisible thing, it’s always been hard to internalize that for myself. I want to believe that I can be “normal” and live a “normal” life, and it just doesn’t work that way. I am often climbing uphill at times when others are walking a straight line and it may help explain some of the weariness that I chronically feel. And yet, whether because of my scattered disposition or playfulness as a coping mechanism or something, it seems like I can appear the opposite of how I feel at times with the people who most need to understand what it’s really like for me: like I’m just chill and goofy and having a good time. I think it’s a form of masking in a way. It’s not that I’m lying about being playful, but it doesn’t really show the part underneath that thinks the concept of sleeping for a year in the hope it will rejuvenate me is a nice idea, even if it doesn’t make any logistical sense.
Vid for those who are curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IO6zqIm88s
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Remembering an old news story from years ago about a guy who just walked into a warehouse with nothing but a clipboard, pretended like he worked for the company, then just walked off with thousands of dollars in merchandise and nobody even realized until he was long gone.
Fucking gigachad. I wonder if he ever got caught.
I bet throwing on a business suit and a hi-vis vest would help.
what happened with venezuela? i remember people making fun of trump for doing a “decapitation strike” that took out one person, and now suddenly rodriguez is sending cuba’s oil to israel? did something change or did maduro just always have a chud vp?
Venezuela doesn’t have any oil anymore. Its imperialist oil going to israel, its just stolen from Venezuela instead of one of the other places they extort.
Back before the kidnapping there was a report that Maduro had offered the us “everything.” So the policies Rodriguez has implemented were probably already agreed to by Maduro. Likely the only sticking point in those negotiations was that usa wanted Maduro to give the presidency to someone usa picked out. By withholding a endorsement of an anti-communist regime, Maduro forced the usa to come get him but this forced usa to leave the socialists in power because they were the only ones with the popular support to implement the negotiated appeasement.
This is real 5d chess. The Venezuelan government aren’t stupid. They know what kind of hell usa could bring them. That kind of suffering would have undermined the support of the Bolivarian revolution. Things will probably get harder for Venezuelans because of the reduction in oil revenue but the blame will be put on america and anyone who supports america instead of the blame being put on the Bolivian revolution like it was for the last few decades. Even the moderate opposition have sided with the Chavista Government to denounce the imperialists. The entire nation is being pushed left by the actions of the usa.
The preservation of the socialist project is more important than the revenue from oil. All the Chavistas have to do is survive a few more decades untill usa crumbles. The commune systems put in place by Chavez and Maduro make it possible to do that. It won’t be easy for Venezuela but it will be easier than war with usa and the struggle will reinforce anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism and Chavismo.
i guess that makes a lot of sense. so the us now controls venezuelan oil more or less completely? is that what’s causing the oil crisis in cuba? sorry i guess i’ve been living under a rock for the past couple weeks; this whole thing has kinda taken me by surprise.
More or less yeah. usa is saying they are going to sell the oil “for” Venezeula but the money is going into an american bank that the usa controls. On top of Cuba losing access to Venezuelan oil usa is threatening a physical blockade and “tariffs” (sanctions) on any nations that try to send anything to Cuba.
Don’t believe everything you hear.
Venezuela is surrounded by US aircraft carriers.
The oil shipment to Israel was denied by Venezuelan gov
新年快乐！Happy chinese new year everyone! Hope your year is full with good luck and good organizing.
Happy Chinese New Year to you comrade
Ooo, ring of fire eclipse, I nearly forgot!
I’m sure everyone here already knows this, but this is just as much a reminder to myself.
When we go out there to help people, we should never expect anything in return. Otherwise we’ll turn into Trotsky-lite. If we can’t expect someone to pay it forward themselves then something isn’t right here and we need to address that. Either within ourselves or within our environment.
I wish everyone great courage, you matter, thank you.
🫵 You WILL have hope, comrade.
