Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at hoome. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!
We have a Matrix homeserver at genzedong.xyz. See this thread for information about our Matrix space.
Short reading list for new MLs here. To find theory, try marxists.org, Anna’s Archive, libgen, or Sci-Hub (for scientific articles). If an article is unavailable, try the Wayback Machine.
I’m really glad we’ve federated with Hexbear. The weeks in between the reddit Lib influx and the Hexbear federation were really rough, since the shitty lib takes seemed to pop up way more than I was comfortable with. But as soon as we federate we end up once again with an overwhelming majority of based takes. Thank you Hexbearists for backing us up against the Lib idiots!
Thank you for enhancing my scrolling experience with these images 🫡
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I’m hoping to visit China one day and paint some of these gorgeous natural landscapes. Absolutely breathtaking.
It’s bigger than it looks in the picture. You’re going to need a lot of paint.
The best part about federating with Lemmygrad:
we’ve got 3 megathreads now
I was pissed when the colonial government in hawaii did nothing to help us when we burn, and move mountains to evac tourists. And now that they’ve sent “aid”, I’m even more pissed.
you want to know why?
Instead of sending extra volunteers, more firefighters, or further aid. Instead of stopping the landlord leeches currently using this crisis to further buy up land.
they sent a mortuary assistant to help identify our burnt corpses
That just feels like open mockery
Regardless of what happens with people in the wider fediverse demanding to defederate from Hexbear, I will always be glad to have our friends from Lemmygrad beside us
The water suppliers over here are starting to refer to people as customers like water isn’t a basic human right and they are rolling out a digital meter to track your water usage to the last drop (and charge you for it). This meter is closely watched by the EU to implement everywhere.
Europe is in a normal place.
Learn how to collect and treat your own rainwater I guess. Things are going to get really rough in the coming decades, that’ll become a vital skill.
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There’s this Dutch energy company of which 40% of the customers have solar panels installed. They generate enough electricity for the people to give back to the company to store. This costs money, of course. Their solution? Have the customers pay for the electricity THEY PRODUCE. So you have these people, who want to have an eco friendly way of producing energy, and you’re going to fuck them over once more. You just can’t win in this system 🫠🫠🫠
I’ve heard this happens over here too, their lazy justification for it in our case is that you’re still using their grid to distribute the energy. As opposed to building your own grid, I guess.
if you don’t like my electrical grid, just use another one!I’ve heard of this being done intentionally in many countries, as (partially) self-sustaining households cut into the profits of electricity companies. Spain is an infamous example, though they seem to have ended the practice in 2019.
Legislation introduced in 2013 by Spain’s then-ruling Popular Party made it compulsory for any individual or company to hook their solar panels up to the national grid to be metered and taxed, or face fines running into millions of euros.
popular party
does something unpopular in every sense of the word
what bourgeois “democracy” does to a mf
Germany solved this “problem” by tacking 3-6c/kWh onto every person’s electric bill to pay for the electricity generated by individuals’ solar panels. Industry didn’t have to pay the surcharge though, just working people. As of last summer it’s been abolished, but do you think our electric price has come down?
Those customers should use their Aircon in the garden to (a) cool the planet and (b) lower their bills.
Modlog continues to be my favorite sort option
Your fixation with race is astounding. I’ve quite honestly never even considered the word ‘mongrel’ to be racially charged, nor was that my intent. That should be all you need to know, really, but you do go on. The word ‘removed’ could be ascribed exactly the same level of racially charged slur, but that’s not what people generally think, noy whats in the dictionary or wikipedia and not what i think when i hear the word. Nor the word bastard for example. That is unless, of course, race and racism are at the forefront of your mind at all times.
the word ‘removed’ could be ascribed exactly the same level of racially charged slur, but
what a lot of words to say “i’m white”
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I’ve been asked to become a writer for the upcoming version of our official party line, which will be written after the next National Congress. My name will be forever tied to a published communist piece of literature.
that’s pretty cool
CIA finna tap my phone and wire my house only to find out I’m a pretty boring guy
After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner’s office received so many calls asking about Webb’s death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide.[71] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied “It’s unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility.”
When? Did those cases also happen to involve people who challenged the CIA?
Based and well deserved!
points
shrieks
“I’m calling the posting police! You went outside! You touched grass! You did a praxis!”Also,
I hope you all have a nice week :D
Hello! I’m new and happy to be here. Excited to explore Lemmygrad 🤗
Welcome! Enjoy your time here! :)
Dutch news is running a story about China’s youth unemployment of 21%, stating that according to economists, it’s a ‘telling sign of decay’. Meanwhile Europe is sitting at roughly the same percentage. I wonder what the signs say about that.
That ~21% unemployment rate is based off the 16-24 age group; composed of high school and university students, whose main task is studying and not working.
People of high school and university age actually go pursue an education and aren’t wage slaves? That’s terrible the east has fallen!
People of high school and university age actually go pursue an education and aren’t wage slaves?
But at what cost?
Bout three fiddy
Our society is going to crisis, quick make some articles about how CHINA IS BAD
The icing on the cake was how they said China’s economy had a growth of 4-5%. They said that this would be really good for a European country, but for China it is BAD lmao. Meanwhile the EU is committing economic suicide on virtually all levels.
It’s setting up the narrative for when China needs to be rescued from itself.
School is starting in many places around the country, so it’s a good time to remind everyone that schools in the US are utterly and completely fucked. One of the largest ongoing domestic neoliberal projects is the current privatization of schooling via the charter school system, highly recommend people research it a bit so they know what’s going on.
American delenda est
They’re working on it
Wtf is this dystopian sh!t?
Gotta dress fascism in bright colours and kid-friendly fuzzy toys, then no-one would notice
Imperialist elmo would be a good bit ngl
Superhero comics fulfil this role already
Is it OK if I post the same thing here that I posted in the hexbear megathread? I’m just wanna do it right now. These feelings are hitting me hard. DOnt worry though, I’m about to go to bed.
The problem I’m having with the back and forth with libs is my inherent empathy. I feel for them and want to reach out with them. I can’t (Usually) just aggressively dunk and move on.
The worst yet for me was the thing earlier with the guy who can’t engage with political memes at all because he thinks they all MIGHT be Russian social media infiltration. I started getting sincerely and genuinely invested in being concerned for their mental health. I actually had like, a continuous low level panic attack going. My body was tense and nervous.
I know the response here is going to be to tell me to just log off and stop getting invested in this, but I really just wanted to vent about how all this is making me feel. I want to help these people out of the bubbles they are in. When they use thought terminating cliches to avoid thinking, it upsets me because god I WANT THEM TO THINK. For their sake.
I think it’s good to always act in good faith towards them. But if you explain something three times and they’re not at least considering another opinion, that’s on them.
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It’s hard isn’t it? I have similar instincts, although I can turn it off when I’m being trolled. Some people don’t want to be reached. They aren’t talking in good faith. They aren’t interested in what you have to say. They know what they are and are happy about it.
You might get hurt if you try to fix everyone. It’s okay not to fix them. It’s okay not to dunk on them, either. It’s okay to say your piece and leave them to think about it. They’ll either grow and develop. Or they won’t. Liberalism provides an answer to every rebuttal. It might be a shit answer, but it has one. Sometimes planting the seed of doubt is enough.
There’s a YouTube series that you might find helpful for reframing the way that you see the people you interact with and how you engage with them: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ . This video in particular may be useful to know what you’re up against: https://youtu.be/CaPgDQkmqqM . I hope this helps and I hope you don’t get too exhausted.
Oh I’ve seen alt right playbook plenty, its very good, but thank you very much anyway.
You’re welcome.
One thing that I have to do so as not to get drawn in is not so much touching grass but sorting by local by default and sorting by subscribed manually (and not subscribing to the news comms that attract liberals). That’s still the same kind of non-solution of ‘just don’t participate’. But at least it gives you some control over not sorting by all, so you can browse but limit how much you’re exposed to people who might exhaust you.
Another thing is sorting by new by default and popping in to new threads but not engaging. Then sort by hot/active/top XYZ to see which threads got a lot of comments. If you engage in the most active threads after comrades have made the trolls ‘show their cards’, it might be easier to identify who is best to avoid. Someone who deliberately misinterprets others isn’t going to be worth your time.
That doesn’t necessarily make it easier for you not to try to convert them: would you be able to not engage in the first place if you already knew the person was insincere?
Probably not. I went back and forth today with someone who was pretty obviously bad faith, but at least my empathy wasnt going off in that case because I didnt feel bad for them or anything.
In that case, at least know that while you’re talking to one person in particular, you might still be reaching a wider audience that is paying attention, even if they don’t engage.
