WideningGyro

Completely tangential to your point, but does Ian shill for NATO? Not surprised at all, always imagined he probably had shitty politics, but still sucks. I really like watching guns being taken apart and put together, and his videos are so damn relaxing.

We did already go whole hog. We pledged to send them all four of our outdated artillery pieces.

Absolutely, but he does point out that the qualities of Soviet society - despite also being flawed in a number of ways - sort of immunized people against understanding capitalism. They were simply unable to imagine a society driven to such an extent by greed, with no minimum of public services, safety net and solidarity. They simply took for granted the qualities of their society, while wanting a layer of economic freedom and consumerism put on top of it - unable to understand that the former would be sacrificed to make room for the latter. He also mentions that Soviet propaganda did play a role, because people became desensitized to critiques of the West and started to assume it was just propaganda, rather than actually correct descriptions of these systems.

I don't think any of this exonerates the people most responsible for the tragedy that was the fall of the Soviet Union, but it does help to understand how such flawed views of capitalism were even possible. And it serves as a warning for future socialist projects to keep the revolution dynamic and alive, to keep people engaging with the questions of what society should look like.

Parenti has a good bit in Blackshirts and Reds which is a bunch of quotes from Soviet officials, intellectuals etc. gushing over western democracy, freedom and markets. Then he follows that up with brutal descriptions of the consequences of shock therapy, forced privatization and so on and lots of people going "what is this shit? Why does nothing work, and only like 5 guys are rich??" and "wow, I had no idea these leopards would eat my face"

Oh me too, of course! I was just further along in my radicalization than her when we met - and generally more interested in politics/ideology

That's basically what I did. My partner was generally lib/apolitical, then I have gradually radicalized her. I did get super lucky that she understands and had/has very strong opinions about climate and environmentalism (part of how we bonded in the first place), so that was an easy vector -> explaining why I believed that solving those problems was impossible without communism. Now we'll be watching some slop tv show and she'll start to do unpromted material analysis and it gets me all hot and bothered

I have it on scalp and behind the ears as well. Only thing that has really worked for me so far has been a steroid solution (liquid hydrocortisone) that my partner applies (it's not easy to apply it effectively yourself IMO). I try to only use it when the outbreaks are the worst becase A) corticosteroids are actually really shit for you in the long run and B) you build a tolerance to it really fast. One time I had a bad outbreak on my scalp, and we dutifully applied the solution every day for like a week, completely clearing it. Aaaaand the next day, it started growing back. Fuck that shit.

I truly believe that stuff like diet and and lifestyle makes a difference (although as my very no-bullshit dermatologist said "feel free to try, but there's no evidence"), I haven't been able to connect my rashes to any food, drink, sleep patterns etc.

Next level treatments are just stronger ways of suppressing the immune system, like biologics and metothrexate (a literal chemotherapy drug, but at much lower doses of course). I'm too scared of the side effects of those drugs, even when I have a bad outbreak so I try to do the "safe" stuff like moisturizing, using a salt water solution before showers (literally just salt water on the skin for 10-20 minutes), getting sunlight when available, taking vitamin D and trying to eat healthy (kind of). Sometimes I feel like maybe those things make a slight difference, and at others I feel like its a complete waste of time.

To give a bit of hope, my father in law had it all throughout his youth and then one day his rash cleared up and just never came back. He is now 70. He has no idea why it happened. Fucking autoimmune diseases..

Seriously, is this meant to be some kind of pivot into overt Islamophobia, to make sure Trump can't monopolize that position? I'm European and this gives me flashbacks to when our succdem parties started to get "tough (i.e: racist) on immigration".

"If I die, tell my wife: 'hello'"

I fear that will just make them double down and nuke everyone/get nuked

Archolos is very good - it adds a lot while sticking close to the OG Gothic experience. My biggest objection to it is that as of right now it is only available with Polish voices, and I miss the crappy EN voice acting of the originals :( but that's hardly fair given the amount of work that went into it. If you have the time, and love Gothic 1-2, you should definitely give it a shot.

I played Risen 1 and 2 a long time ago and recall them scratching some of the same itch, albeit not quite as good. Just saw there was a third entry which I never played

Sure he kills children. But with integrity