muddi

Yeah I get it but that's what disappoints me. Like what I mentioned about Dune and Warhammer. Tolkien achieved something and kick-started a genre, but that genre turned out mostly to be about fantasy races fighting genocidal wars...not celebrating the wonder of mythology and fairy tales, at least in my opinion. At the very least, they could be more meaningful by being symbolic of something. But Tolkien already saw to that from the start

I like when authors are intentional about their stories like this.

People bring up Tolkien's "applicability not allegory" or death of the author, or just defend their treats against being apparently politicized. But people politicize, interpret, and re-mythologize things anyways. Tolkien's stories have been coopted by European nationalists to fight the "orcs" of the "East."

A similar thing with Dune, people fixate on the environment aspect or exaggerated brutality and oppression by imperialists hence Star Wars, Warhammer, etc. I guess. I find it weird. The point was or should be the struggle for liberation and the power of ideology.

Might as well be on the nose about things as an author IMO, seems annoying to deal with

Also: was Dune about Palestine? I thought it was inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, so the Arab Revolt. Maybe the Great Game

lol sorry by fantasy I didn't mean the genre or setting, but like Mary Sue type writing where communism wins just because the writer wants it to, bad choice of words there.

I'm trying to write some communist fantasy myself! I think leftist writers put in a lot of effort to understand the history and be realistic about it. I've never seen anyone just champion communism because it sounds nifty

What "book" are they talking about lol, what modern communist writes utopian apologia or fantasy?

(not the genre of fantasy, I meant like, fantasizing about communism as a dream rather than a real historical struggle)

Autobiographies like Guevara's are based on actual historical realities

The Dispossessed comes to mind, and the subtitle is An Ambiguous Utopia

They're definitely not talking about the magic system in Das Kapital right??

This is what dates and hanging out with a friend turns into anyways. Go to a show/dinner/game then awkwardly walk around town because neither wants to go back home and do something less fun

I think there must be or have been. Corporate policies always have strict measures to make sure fired employees don't take out their anger before they leave

Other thing I can think of is that not many people would be willing to throw away their lives or their loved ones' by doing something that can hurt them even more than losing their job (the brutal reprisal of capital). I can really only think of very desperate or disturbed people like the Unabomber

or people joining hands through unionization and striking where they can have more confidence and hope. Sometimes that erupts into real violence, like the Battle of Blair Mountain

The metric of economic organization is just dollars then??

There's a Buddhist parable about getting hit with two arrows. You could imagine it in a scenario where you are on a battlefield and are struck by an arrow. But for some reason you freeze up and stare at it, so you get hit by a second. You should have taken cover.

Another way, more secular if you prefer that, is shooting yourself in the foot. That only happens when you're not watching what you are doing or thinking.

Existential fear and the unknown unknowns aren't something that you should seriously be afraid of. They are fears of fears, that something potential may be potential. Two degrees removed from reality. At least something more immediately threatening, you can act against.

Those more abstract dangers are for humanity as a group to deal with. Tackling them as individuals will result in anxiety. Focus on more immediate problems, or find others to tackle the more abstract problems together, knowing you still might not achieve anything material just yet

One must imagine Sisyphus high on life*

I imagine there must be something like a runner's high once you get used to pushing up the boulder and it gets easy peasy.

Others made the regular critiques like exceptional individualism but I wanna bring up another angle, beyond the literal superhero.

You can read superhero stories as myths, legends, and folklore for the modern world (and to be frank, the Western world). And the myth of a culture can be a retelling of their experience of their world. In this case it's explanatory, like creation stories, national epics, and cultural heroes. Just memorializing and celebrating what already exists

But sometimes it's more hopeful or even vengeful, like eschatological myth (end of the world prophecies). These express a change they want to see or hope to prevent in the future.

Superhero stories might seem like they are in the second category because they are promoting the regular world and regular people to the supernatural. But that's just the premise that puts it in the fiction genre. They aren't actually proposing humans become superhumans. Really they are more in the first category: they explain, justify, and celebrate what already exists.

Which is why superheroes are "defenders of the earth" or of specific nations, like Captain America. Otherwise they'd just be revolutionaries.

I remember playing with my younger cousin who lives in a 3rd world country. His little kid fantasies weren't about being the strongest guy and beating up bad guys. Rather he wanted to start a movement to establish a system where everyone had access to all the things they need (in his mind, snacks, sweets, and games)

Btw this is kinda why most superhero stories disappoint me. It's all a contrived conflict. It's already a symbolic story because it's fiction. But then you have heroes fighting villains out of the blue. For example Captain America fighting the made up Red Skull even though Hitler was still there. Or the Indian Brahmastra could have been about saving India but rather it was some cult vs another cult that didn't matter to any regular person in that world or the real one

Curry is kind of a generic term but based on the butter chicken I assume it's a gravy of veggie pulp and spices like garam masala? If so I think North Indian and Thai curries are your best bet. Any veggies and greens go well with those.

I was going to suggest some South Indian coconut based curries like avial if you are looking for something milder. They require a different base though. There are some traditional veggie pairings too.

But that's the beauty of curry. The word "kari," "kura," etc. is the Dravidian term for curry, which is its original etymology. It just means vegetable or vegetable dish. You can really do anything. We usually just finish off what we have in the fridge or pantry.