askchapo

Anime avatars are often a coin toss between (potential) comrade and chud, so it may be fun and maybe helpful to think about and share those in the place of that old bellwether for chuddery.

Mine is anyone with ".eth" as a suffix in their online name. I have yet to see a single person that does that that isn't a chud.

It may even be cheating, but seeing an actual cryptofascist cartoon "original NFT do not steal" is a pretty reliable red flag too.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I almost forgot.

Proof:

Why don't they go shoot up Beverly hills/Wall Street/police stations/court room/federal agencies etc.? Rich and powerful people rarely get hurt.

This is not just a reference to hexbear, but the (western) world at large. I've noticed so many people in my life slowly lose their ability to exist in relationship with others. Lose their ability to be social - one of the most basic tenants of humanity. One of the most obvious symptoms is less empathy, but it extends to the bounds of human-human relationships. Humor, conflict resolution, eye-contact, finding babies cute, casual conversation, holding the door for people, whatever. I see it all withering. People are just fucking losing it man.

I know that most people here understand this intuitively, but I guess I'm suggesting to broaden the take. Everyone knows that atomization + high stress society --> anti-social behaviors. But I think that because humankind is so based on existing in relation to other humans, that we (at least on this forum) tend to downplay how far these effects go. I'm saying that beyond being grumpy, we're losing really basic parts of being human. Most of my friends struggle to communicate normally anymore (and my friends are pretty normal, representative people - not a particularly isolated subgroup of gamers or something). They are no longer able to consider other people's perspectives, their memories are weaker, and their entire personalities dull over. Those are all symptoms of depression, yes, but I think it's also related to the fact that our collective humanities are relational. Many people are actually losing innate human qualities because of their atomization. Here's why:

You cannot be fully human by yourself - the human experience requires interpersonal relation. Humans aren't just social animals, we literally need community to understand ourselves. Your sense of self depends on validation, corroboration, correction, and guidance from others. E.g., you can't be a "nice person" without people to be nice to. You can't be a funny person unless you make other humans laugh. People deeply identify with terms like "smart" or "tall", and both are completely relational: you can only be smart if there are people you are smarter than. How do you see yourself? Most terms necessitate other people. You can't even see your own personality without the mirror of community. You couldn't know if you were smart or kind or funny if you lived in pure isolation. Less theoretically, you can't understand your personal growth without the notation of people around you. You need outside perspectives because our self-perception is flawed. It is primarily through our friends that we can get a clear understanding of how far we have come, or how deeply we have fallen. You can't understand it accurately on your own Our dependence on other humans is so deep that our entire essence is rooted in others. We can't exist in this atomized way. It shreds apart anyone's humanity.

And so I think a lot of what leftists conclude is the result of society is misplaced- it's not just the stress of "late-stage capitalism" that causes people to mentally deteriorate in this way. It's that, in this interpretation of capitalist imperialism, we don't have any semblance of real community to withstand any of this stress. People in different cultures (even capitalist ones) are able to handle comparatively harder lifestyles in a much more robust way because of that relational perseverance that community affords your psyche. I come from a different country, not America, with significantly worse material conditions. Yet the people are able to cope significantly easier because we have really strong community bonds there. I think that people perceive atomization as purely a symptom of this society, but it's actually really causal. Of course, capitalism causes the atomization (even weaponizes it!). But I think we do a disservice to our own analysis by over simplifying the psychological effects of atomization to just capitalism = lonely and sad.

Even on this forum, it's kind of ridiculous how much people are unable to resolve conflict or engage in productive dialectic discourse. I've been a lurker for a while and it's sad to see how much toxicity has been created by virtue of change in algorithm. I think that speaks to the lil cyclical thing going on with losing community/losing humanity/losing community. Yeah, idk. Just drunk thoughts from a lurker who used to be on here more. I hope y'all receive it with kindness or whatever <3

See title, this builds up on the previous request for reading lists, but is a bit more open ended and is supposed to be a contemporary update that I would like to post twice a year.

The texts at best are accessible without too much previous knowledge. Open for videos, and other media, as well as group formats, and activities too. You have to participate in protest training and actually cook for others to see how both those things feel.

I would be more happy with fewer thick works or only excerpts from complicated stuff, than to suggest the complete collection of Marx's works. Some popular and recent books i.e. Jakarta Method, Klein, or recent organizing books would be welcome, too.

The next time I post this question (and feel free to paste your own suggested template) will be December/January 2023.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending the current US healthcare system, it’s horrible and riddled with perverse incentives, and should be mostly (if not entirely) nationalized. I’m just not sure how to justify the idea that healthcare is a “right”.

I know that sometimes people on the left draw a comparison to the right to a public defender. I’m not sure that argument really holds up though, because you only have the right to a public defender under the specific circumstance of being prosecuted by the government for a crime. The logic there is “if the government is going to significantly interfere with your life by arresting you and trying you for a crime, then it at least has to allow you to get legal defense from a qualified attorney, even if you need the government to pay for it.” There’s not, like, a right to a publicly paid lawyer for any and all purposes.

I am not familiar with the term, "federated" or its meaning... I'm hoping to get some serious answers and perhaps even some comedic answers....

Edit: thank you to all who answered my call for enlightenment. I'm even more confused (and hopeful) than I was before!

Every time we chat, and the discussion turns towards capitalism, she’s the one who without any hesitation just says we should kill them all. Now, though, it’s gone further to torture. And she names names. In addition to people like Bezos and Musk, she includes Ben Shapiro, Andrew Tate and others.

I say we should force them to work and maybe learn the error of their ways (After the revolution of course. During it many of these fucks will die and I’ll be glad).

Her current jobs is extremely horrible. She’s being massively overworked, verbally abused and, of course, underpaid. So I get her frustration. But it’s also scary. I don’t want her to get in any trouble.

I don’t know if I should be gently turning her away from imagining a slow and painful torture of capitalists or not. Am I being a lib or is she too extreme?

Who would you transform into a model socialist citizen?

It’s not fair :angery:

No preamble today, you all know what this is by now. As I sew a Cthulhu patch onto my vest, I just wanted to check in with my favorite comrades! This is your space to talk and vent!

A lot of you remember that show I had last week with the people who don't like me. It actually went pretty horrible for my partner, not so much for me. I walked out during the performances of the people in question, and the 3rd person just walked right past me without saying anything, and I had my best friend with me so it ended up being a fun, drunken/high evening for me, in some respects.

My partner tho...one of the performers (who I fucked things up with) had a mental break right before the last act, was screaming and crying about how they didn't wanna do it. I can't help but wonder if my presence played a part in that. Partner isn't holding the break against them, but they haven't reached out since to say anything at all about it. My partner produced and directed the show, so they won't be inviting them back. On top of that, they ended up losing money on the show that they worked hard for, and they found out that some other people in their community were trying to poach the venue, which upset them. ON TOP OF THAT - they're coming off Lexapro, so it hasn't been an easy week.

Beyond that, I've been making new friends, some of them from Hexbear, some of them from Lex. Talking with someone right now who is spitting Marx quotes at me and I'm just like....oh yeah, let's fucking do this. Had a GREAT day on Saturday doing mutual aid work and then hanging out. My partner seems to be working on us doing ENM/poly stuff in a positive way, so that's cool. Band practice tonight, rest tomorrow, and then back to distributing food on Saturday.

Hope you're all well!

Are people like me - for whom every moment spent thinking about the need for money is a moment spent in anguish - just not supposed to exist?

29 inch wheels ane the checkered parts are removable

Our culture is diseased now but damn the post-9/11 zeitgeist was cursed as hell

I think I know the answer but just checking…

My trusty Samsung Galaxy S7 that I bought in 2017 is bricked and now I must buy a new phone. What are the recommendations of the hexbear community for a replacement? I was satisfied with my elderly phone except that there was a lot of junk that came with the phone that I couldn't delete, and for the last couple years or so I've had to delete an app before I could add an app, so that was kind of annoying. But other than that, I was happy with it, so I don't need the newest coolest thing.

FYI: Stanford research staff have stopped masking in the middle of the long-Covid PAXLOVID study : covidlonghaulers

We just walked out and quit the study today. Stanford medical dropped all masking requirements and the researchers running the long-Covid paxlovid study have stopped masking while tending to long covid participants. It’s frankly abhorrent, selfish behavior, and not only does it demonstrate a complete lack of regard and understanding for the illness in question, in my opinion it calls into question the legitimacy of the entire study. We’ve been traveling hundreds of miles for months in order to try to participate in their study and provide THEM with data about the illness, and this is what they think of us. Just want to make everyone aware in case you also have the misfortune of being a participant.

EDIT: Aside from the obvious lack of regard for the safety and well being of their patients/subjects, I should point out that this is also just a terrible choice for the study. Want to know how to get consistent study results? I'll give you a hint: it doesn't involve dramatically changing the study conditions 3/4 of the way through. Not only are they callously risking people's health, they risk invalidating the entire project and its data by suddenly increasing the odds of reinfecting their participants and negatively changing the course of their health.

Tweet thread

Unless it’s a service animal, I don’t like when dogs are in public buildings. Tired of trying to buy food at the grocery store but having to dodge dogs and avoid stepping over their leashes. This anger is mostly directed at their owners as I’m skittish around dogs I don’t know.

I recently watched grandmaster of demonic cultivation after reading reverend insanity and want more gay bros cultivating chi together.

Thanks all, those are some great recs

Okay, so background: I'm your average pro-gun fuck-the-police, fuck-trump zoomer honed by years of unsupervised internet access and I've just discovered this community and started lurking for a while. But I still hold extremely negative views on China, which I still think are justified.

"Which views?" I'll throw them out real quick: child labor! internet censorship! media censorship! anti-LGBTQ! uygher genocide? positive and pro war relations with russia! (because fuck putin)

So I get really confused anytime I see people expressing pro-China sentiments. Have I been spoonfed by the media or are some of these points actually justified?

So Mr. Bitcoin President of El Salvador has deployed a massive wave of incarcerating violent gang members to combat endemic violence in the country, but also at the cost of civil liberties and also not addressing the root causes of the gang violence in the first place.

Of course, El Salvador has been among the most violent countries in the world in terms of murder rates and violent crimes so something had to be done, but I'm not convinced that this crackdown will do anything but kick the can down the road.

Thoughts? Also, apologies for the Guardian link it was the first summary to come up when I searched it :ohnoes:

For me, as much as I link posts about how utterly vile :my-hero: is (and he is), if he lacked the money and political power and reach that he did, he'd just be that one creepy asshole relative that steals other people's jokes and runs them into the ground and has recently found himself no longer invited to Thanksgiving, if you know what I mean.

In a different life, :trump-anguish: would just be a bumbling disaster of a human being with no one to prop him up when he falls over. He'd be a low-rolling fascist run of :tequila-sunset:

It's going to sound petty (because it is), but Alex Kurtzman is one such vile person to me. It isn't an appearance thing (though his perpetually smug smirk looks like a fist magnet), either. Almost everything he says is so remarkably arrogant and laden with unaccountable hubris that stacks up and up but no matter how many entertainment franchises he smears himself all over, often wrecking their long-term success in the process, he keeps getting more work and keeps getting richer. He doesn't do much actually tangible damage to society, hasn't physically harmed anyone as far as I know, but the only value he's ever had to me was that he made me aware of the concept of "failing upwards" when I was an initiate leftist. :disgost:

EDIT: Ron DeSant!s easily beats Kurtzman for vileness but maybe that's too obvious an answer, especially after recently reading about his torture-viewing giggle sessions.