Jentu

I feel like people my age and younger aren’t as propagandized about Stalin as previous generations (having most of our history classes revolve around the civil war and the western front of WWII), so generally anything I say about him is “huh I didn’t know that.” I personally find more friction when it comes to DPRK because of propaganda created and disseminated while people my age have been alive.

Usually Stalin comes up when I’m agreeing with a concept someone has by giving a Stalin quote, then telling them it’s a quote from Stalin. Eventually the goal is to get them to either read theory or watch me give a “be a communist with me” power point style presentation.

~~A few days late because various IRL things, but I’ll edit this comment later once I’ve gone through the chapter~~ Just finished the intro as well as chapter 1.

There something about the section which talks about how "the mind of our people is changing so fast under the conditions of socialism, that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to speak with the rest of the world." which gives an immense amount of optimism. Though I'm aware of the folly of the "human nature" argument, pessimism can still start to wear on me if I don't keep in mind how quickly that "nature" can change with a different, less exploitative system.

It also reminds me of that one quote from Omar El Akkad that focuses on how much capitalism is changing the hearts and minds of those in the west.

"It is an admirable thing, in a politics possessed of a moral floor, to believe one can change the system from the inside, that with enough respectful prodding the establishment can be made to bend, like that famous arc, toward justice. But when, after decades of such thinking, decades of respectful prodding, the condition one arrives at is reticent acceptance of genocide, is it not at least worth considering that you are not changing the system nearly as much as the system is changing you?"

I love how easy to digest these concepts are (though I guess the real test of this would be on someone who isn't already familiar with marxism), so maybe I'll be suggesting this book to my friends who are "revolutionarily curious". Excited to read more!

YouTube thumbnail from the 1950s

Just wait until you find out about the Supreme Court and how long their terms last.

I'm interested in participating!

Travel bidets may not really compete with an actual appliance, but it's better than just shitty workplace toilet paper

They've already explained that China has more economic data to determine that theoretical cap location, so you, not being Chinese yourself, are basing your cap entirely on vibes with no insight on to how it hurts or helps Chinese people. It's just as arbitrary a number as the equivalent question one could ask you- Give me a hard number of people (through slower economic development) who should be dirt-poor in China today to prevent billionaires. Quick economic development (with the help of leashed capitalists) has lifted so many out of poverty and it seems you would happily undo this purely because rich people exist and it isn't pure enough.

Just have the post/vfx house mask over the rainbow?? The post house is probably replacing a lot of background stuff already. This feels like the world’s worst lie.

Next up: production shut down because lead actor got a pimple.

Rockbox

I desperately wish my Rockbox consistently worked without crashing or freezing once a week.

"Thanks everyone! Unfortunately he's not much of a self-starter because he's a Taurus"

"Oh, I thought this was a Rising Saturn. I knew I should've checked Co-Star first"

Just to piggyback off this comment a bit (since I'm not sure I've ever rented anywhere with MERV 13+ filters). Try making a Corsi–Rosenthal Box with a box fan and 4 air filters. This might be beyond your price range since MERV13 filters aren't the cheapest in the world when you have to buy 4 of them, but I've been using mine for years and they work REALLY well. My PM2.5 sensor is consistently on "0" unless I'm cooking.

Why would people who want socialism vote for people maintaining capitalism? Why would you equate participating in bourgeois elections as an indicator of motivation of all political action?

There's ~40-50% of US potential voters who don't vote for various reasons- Living in a state where the results are almost guaranteed, being alienated from politics in general because of the distrust in our government as a whole, leftists who don't vote but are politically active in other ways, etc. There's also people who do vote because they feel like they have to vote against the worse choice. If only all this alienation and lesser-evilism and feeling ineffective politically could be siphoned into a mass movement that helps all of us. Capitalism cannot be "fixed" if a group of people who don't vote suddenly start voting. That's pure fantasy. But it seems people who believe this would rather hope for a fantasy situation than actually looking at reality and adjusting their strategy to make things better. Otherwise, you'll just delay necessary change and feel resentment toward people who couldn't convince you fast enough.