I’m not sure what this is in response to exactly. Comments on the youtube video? I’m sure some women don’t want to go through pregnancy throughout all of human history and they should have the right not to, wherever possible. But plenty do want to have kids of their own now and historically (in spite of the fact pregnancy can be a difficult and at times dangerous thing to go through), and it’s not as though all of them need to for a society to keep going anyway. And when it comes to the point that knfrmity raised about “takes a village”, it’s probably better to have some people who aren’t raising children of their own, but are nevertheless helping raise other people’s children as “part of the village.”

The question here is what has changed compared to certain numbers in the past. If capitalism is not a factor, what is the factor? Or are you saying the difference is made up?

I’m also just a little weirded out by this wording:

spend their best years

I would define a person’s best years as the years they are the happiest about, not a range set from the outside. When you turn 30, or 40, or 50, you aren’t in decline now and it’s all downhill from there. That would be a nihilistic, overly biological, depressing view of life. And one that syncs up rather uncomfortably with an objectified view of women…

I was thinking about this comment and thread a bit earlier and I think while it def has a good point, some of it is even more straightforward than that; western capitalism/empire went to great lengths to isolate and individualize because that makes it harder for people to organize and see eye to eye, makes them easier to exploit, etc., including segmenting on gender. That means many of the connections that a person might make in a “normal” (cooperative) society just from knowing other people and working (or playing) with them closely in the day to day, are just… not there. Which of course is going to include romantic connections too. Online dating seems to have tried to answer this problem by giving you a wider search range to compensate for how splintered people are and it got captured by gamified profiteering, and on top of that, in a place like the US for example, the splintering seems to have gotten progressively worse over time, diminishing any gains from an expanded search range.

So there is the factor of whether people can afford to have kids, have the time to, have any desire to, but there’s also the step of them even getting into a lasting relationship where that convo might come up, in the first place. The capitalists want to have their cake and eat it too; they want a populace that is so splintered it poses no threat to them, yet also somehow falls in love with each other and makes babies for the factory heaving, but the one is contradictory to the other.

Is it big? I don’t know how big it is exactly, but the west sure loves to demonize China, like they did the Soviet Union, like they do with Russia still now (even though Russia is not even remotely communist anymore). They tell lies about Tiananmen, about treatment of an ethnic minority they could find to use as a wedge (one that they themselves would be more prone to do in reality what they fakely claim China is doing - remember: every accusation is a confession), they say “at what cost?” about things that will improve the lives of regular people. They have a robust media machine of duplicitous lying horseshit. And if someone believes that and they haven’t yet made the connection that imperialism and colonialism is a bigger monster than local capitalism, then they may implicitly still trust in western media portrayal of other countries. Breaking people out of this is, I think, more important than getting them to be communist. Not that you necessarily have to pick only one, but overall, imperialism is the bigger threat and so I’d say it’s more important somebody understands that for what it is and opposes it but is a bit liberal otherwise than them being a western chauvinist who believes in fighting for the working class.

I’m trying to compare in my mind since I did not grow up in such a society and I think being in the US, the closest comparison is unlearning the founding fathers and constitution worship. In that context, there’s almost this magical significance applied to these elements of the country, as if they discovered and created something wholly original that has never been done before or since. When all they did was create one of the most brutal colonies in human history.

So you prob have to demystify it in a similar fashion, point out how much brutality these royals have been behind and continue to be behind. That there’s nothing cute about family gossip or ceremony for such people.

I replayed it too many times and now I’m thinking about how they’re all a bunch of awkward people who poop the same as everyone else, wearing suits and backed up by armed forces to give them titles. Some of them are also terrible people like israel’s head international criminal, there is that too, which I guess just goes back to how banal evil can be.

It’s an interesting thought. But going for “simplest explanation” reasoning, I would say based on the fact alone that israel is known to aggressively, constantly lie, that would suggest they’re more likely to be doing any lying/misleading statements here. If we consider israel as being something like Narcissistic Personality Disorder in state colony form, that kind of person never wants to admit weakness or fault, no matter what; a narcissist’s actions differ from a more plainly cunning malignant psychopath in that protecting their image can be deemed more important than protecting themself materially. (Mind you, I’m not saying this situation is reducible to psychological archetypes - just drawing the comparison to try to help explain how pathological lying to the point of damaging their own goals could make a kind of sense to them as behavior, even if it seems irrational and reckless to us.)

I don’t love my own analogy here (anything too “individual psychology” focused is a bit iffy to me), but trying to get at the mindset of superiority that seems to be a significant part of what israel is and how it acts.

Is there someone who knows more about how this stuff is measured, in terms of danger? The CNN article links to Rockdale FB statement as a source and that statement talks of the supposed “average of” measured levels being below “action level” but it doesn’t explain how that actually relates to what is safe for a person to inhale. And there’s a person in the comments of that same post saying they still see a plume with a video of it. 🫠

I was watching it and I realized, it has the same energy as those “seed faith” rich televangelists in the US. Just making stuff up on the spot, while trying to make it sound like they’re revealing something profound.

Tbh, while I think this is a funny meme that uses a good format, I’m not a fan of the generational rhetoric in either direction. I will focus on the US because that seems to be where a lot of the generational rhetoric is centered on: From what I can find on dates, Fred Hampton would be considered boomer age range, if he was still alive today. Assata Shakur, still living, is another. I’m sure one can find many more who fought for better and got imprisoned or murdered by the state, or are still actively free and fighting even if they don’t have a lot of visibility.

The best way to counter generational rhetoric, in my view, is not to flip it back on the ones who say millennials/z/alpha/etc. are bad, but to counter the whole premise of saying that one generation is causing problems and another isn’t. We know that’s not true. It’s a minority of people orchestrating most of the damage, across generations. That’s not to say there isn’t any damage being done by people beyond that range, but, for example, it’s not some protesters showing up for Palestine or some dentist who barely reads the news who is bombing kids in Palestine, it’s the US federal government and military apparatus in partnership with israel. Some people are more complicit than they should be, but the ones actually organizing the terror and pulling the trigger are not the majority.

it eats at me when I have to see the results of the “unjust peace” (not that what’s going on in the world or even within the cores can be remotely described as “peace”) and live in it, particularly with the Sinophobic sword of Damocles hanging over my head (ethnic Chinese myself), or with literal industrial genocide going on and the west goosestepping towards WW3 and open fascism.

I can’t pretend to understand the part about being ethnically Chinese in the imperial core, as I definitely qualify as “white” myself, but the part about “unjust peace” resonates with me in some way. I don’t know if my mind is going to quite the same places, but there’s something about the normalcy of things in the US that def eats at me. One expression of this where I notice it is, of all places, dating apps. I don’t know what it is about it, but seeing profile after profile that has all this individualistic language about a personal lifestyle, while perhaps the most documented-in-real-time and widely publicized genocide in history is being funded and enabled by the US, is such a disorienting feeling. There’s the odd profile here and there that mentions it, maybe some of it’s my locale, but it’s like overall, this juxtaposition of liberal individualism against the realities of what is happening in the world. Like the implied assumption is that the current system works and will keep working and everybody will sort of get to do their own thing if they try hard enough for it, and it’s like, are many of these people putting on a face but don’t believe the system is going to last, or are they sleepwalking through it in a political education sense of things.

And I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’m doing the best I could be doing in my own case, with regards to these things. I might be doing the best I can manage right now, but I can probably work to do better going forward. And I think that’s part of the disorienting feeling for me too. Like having one feet in and one foot out. But I can never unsee everything I’ve seen and I can’t ever feel normal going back what it felt like before I was more aware of what’s going on in the world beyond the imperialist bubble of propaganda. And the fact that I can’t means it’s all the harder to relate to a lot of people. So I can put on a face and do the individualist lifestyle dance to a point, but sometimes it feels like putting on a brave face for a kid. I know that would probably sound demeaning to people and places it applies to, but it’s the best analogy I can think of at the moment. It’s like this thing of pretending things are normal when they aren’t because it’s too upsetting to others if you don’t at least try to, to a degree. That doesn’t mean I never bring up the issues I care about, but it’s like, trying to find the right balance of being able to meet people where they are at in order to have any chance of moving the needle and taking a principled stand. That is hard, when the default position for so many in the US is confident spew that contains various levels of barely-contained vile; and I’m not even talking about people who are openly fascist or whatever. More just the stomach-turning nature of liberalism.

You aren’t a liberal for being human. It is something to remember that some of us are not the best “people person” types and either need to work on that more, or need to find others who can better do those roles. Using myself as an example, I’m good at being diplomatic, but chatting up strangers has never been one of my strengths; it’s possible I could make it one with enough time and motivation, but right now, it’s not. Not having that strength will cut off capabilities for me that people who can do that, have. I also have an easier time getting into meta, deep concepts than some, but it does little if I can’t present it to others in a way that communicates its value effectively and contributes to the advancement of liberation and the advancement of more compassionate and stable conditions for people.

We have different strengths, in other words, and no matter what an individual works on, they will still lack in some areas. That’s one of the reasons organizing together and complementing each other, in both strengths and struggles, is so important.

Well said. I think I’m of a similar mind about it, but I feel like you worded it better than I did.

In general, this sounds like it could lead to sort of “gatekeeping” what counts as “praxis”, depending on how it’s answered. But I want to say, it kind of depends on how you go about it and why. First, I would say, anything can be a help if it’s persuasive in an anti-imperialist and/or communist direction. The less rabid imperialists and fascists, the less for those efforts to recruit from. In that sense, it obviously matters somehow, provided you’re reaching actual real people and not just arguing with astroturf bots or something.

But, there are probably ways that are more effective than others. For example, are you assessing and re-assessing your approach as you go, based on what you can glean about its effectiveness and what it does toward your goals. Or are you just doing what I might call “reaction-posting”, where it’s more about venting among people who feel similarly w/ regards to whatever the latest thing is; which is a valid thing to do, but may not be persuading anyone about these things.

Anything organized is probably way more effective than random attempts, but it can be hard to do that on the internet. I would compare a lot of the more random internet stuff as being similar to, if you’re talking in a group at a party and someone says something super racist and nobody is calling it out, which sends the message that it’s okay for that person to be racist. Whereas if you do call it out and you make it clear it’s not okay, you are at the very least challenging the narrative on what is considered normal and acceptable to say in public. This is not in itself eradicating racism, but if the person didn’t mean to be racist or is more likely to lean into it from peer support, that rejection might cause them to reflect on their views.

So is it gonna do a revolution without grass-touching? No. But can it have an impact of a kind, along with other forms of effort in-person? For sure. Otherwise, imperialists and their ilk wouldn’t do astroturfing to manipulate social media. Like what happened in Myanmar, I think it was, with Facebook manipulation (don’t quote me on that, may be recalling the names incorrectly somehow).

I’m gonna hope that Cunningham’s law gets a better answer/correction if this one is in any way off:

• Things exist as opposites (hot/cold, night/day, etc.)

• There’s a push and pull between these opposites and they can be said to exist in contradiction with each other

• Things go through states of change (night turns to day, day turns to night)

• Resolving these sort of contradictions in social systems (rich/poor, etc.) can involve sort of “leveling them out” through a process of enforced change; the worker, who may be separated out from the “intellectual” in the prior system, becomes educated and the “intellectual” becomes a laborer (the gap between the two becomes narrower); the community leader who was before divorced from the political process becomes a representative not through campaigning but because their community selects them out and wants them to represent them; the worker who before had to rent (at best) access to the means of production (land, factories) gets shared, collective ownership of it.

• There must be a developed process of change: For example, if China were to today declare that it is now a stateless, classless, moneyless society and dissolve the state, what is likely to happen? The inertia and state apparatuses and social systems in place would likely continue as they are and replace the leadership who said such with new leadership who adheres to the current system. Were they to declare this and try to enforce it, such as by punishing people for exchanging goods and services via money, they would be contradicting the stateless part and generally losing sight of process in favor of blind adherence to a vague concept. Without a process of change to develop toward things, it’s little more than an aspirational declaration of intent. Like Michael Scott from The Office “declaring bankruptcy”; filing for bankruptcy is an enforced and designed process that functions a certain way in the context of a specific society. Declaring it literally doesn’t get you anywhere.

• Other example: You are in a dark room, so you flip the light switch. The switch is connected to wires, which (through complex processes I don’t understand well enough to explain) electricity gets created and a light bulb is powered. But, the light doesn’t turn on. This can mean a number of things: the power as a whole is out; something is wrong with the wiring (in which case, you need an electrician); or the more common, the bulb doesn’t work anymore. You turn the light switch off so you don’t get zapped while replacing the bulb, remove the old one, and try putting the new one in. You flip the light switch on. Light floods the room. This enables you to see in the dark, so now you can study for that exam you have even though it’s 2am. Where before you were limited to studying with the sun, you can now do it at night. This expands the range of things you can do, regardless of time of day, but also can mess with your circadian rhythms, making your sleep worse. The more you drill this stuff down, the more you get into how things push and pull with each other, and how humans and communities and societies effect change and are affected by change.

(This ended up being a big thing when I meant for it to be a small summary, but I’m gonna roll with it and hope it helps for discussion, if nothing else lol.)

People tried to, to an extent, in 2020. Against police brutality. And they were brutalized for it and cop cities started getting built. Called rioters when most of them were nothing more than civil disobedience and police were the ones primarily rioting, being violent against them for daring to express any opposition to the state’s wanton violence.

Mind you, I don’t say this to be reductionist or dismissive with the “why” which is an important question to contend with. But the point is, it’s not as though everyone is sitting around doing nothing. And revolutions, as we know from history, do not happen (or maybe, more precisely, do not succeed) from spontaneous anger alone, but from organized, disciplined force and intention. Stuff like cointelpro and the vilification and violence against the Black Panther Party, or going further back than that, the imprisonment of Eugene Debs or the Battle of Blair Mountain, shows that there are elements of the US who do fight back and face state violence every time. Or a more recent example, the student protests against genocide; maybe that doesn’t qualify as “revolting” to you, but it is a kind of resistance against imperialism and carries with it risk of violence from the state as a consequence.

Why it’s not more than that, is maybe a more important question to ask. And some of the answer to that, I think is found in the systematized racial hierarchy. To a racist enough person, the systemic violence against black people, for example, is virtually invisible to them as an issue, if they would even deem it as one in the first place. Then there are those liberals who view themselves as anti-racist, but obviously aren’t in substantive action, and that’s a whole can of worms in itself.

Part of the gut punch of this is the grassroots efforts to stop it that were basically ignored. Don’t let anyone tell you the US is anything remotely resembling a system “by/for the people.” One of the fakest slogans in modern history. The US is “by/for white supremacy, colonialism, and imperialism,” and they have clung to that general makeup through the will of a violent and organized power elite—along with the weaponization of a racist class of “white people” under that—throughout the entire country’s history. On paper, being post woman’s suffrage movement, post civil rights movement, it is perhaps as democratic a system as it has ever been in the country’s history, which in practice is saying… almost nothing, considering outcomes like this. The US seems clearly to be a country that runs on the aesthetics of democracy over any actual democratic process. I find it’s the same way liberals tend to think about fascism in the US, as some kind of aesthetic that you will “know when you see it.” But the substance of fascism is already there (IIRC, George Jackson talks about this in Blood in My Eye, though I don’t remember the specifics atm).

What is a vote worth if it ignores the will of the people? This is the reality liberal “democracy” shows over and over (another notable example recently, what happened with the French “elections”). “What can we do to give the illusion of choice without actual people power that could challenge the hegemonic goal of imperial expansion, and global domination and humiliation of entire peoples?” The answers to that question brought into being by the organized colonizers is what we’re dealing with in places like the US. Honestly, even using words like “domination” doesn’t feel strong enough. The degree of systematic violence that colonialism does is obsessed with torture, maiming, and inflicting terror, not just in control alone. It is not enough for them to kill a person; they want the victim and anyone who supports them to feel helpless and dispirited too. To be broken by it, until you are numb.

Under any other circumstance, I might say I’m being dramatic, but this is a graphically violent system of power we’re talking about, colonialism, with a hundreds of years legacy to it. It can shock the system to internalize how grotesque and systematized it is, in its violence.

You can never win with the propaganda of the capitalists. They will twist anything and everything. If you are frugal and save, then “the economy is struggling because people aren’t spending enough on businesses.” If you spend on so-called ‘luxuries’ (like spending on anything other than bare minimum sustenance, how luxurious!), then “your poor spending habits are what’s causing you to be poor and not the fact that federally mandated minimum wages have been stagnant while living costs rise and the one tepid reformist candidate who cared about it got treated as an extremist.”

She said a relationship with money is like a relationship with people: it starts during childhood and sees people form different types of attachments.

“If you feel like you have a secure attachment with money, you can make a sound evaluation of something. You gather knowledge and you can evaluate [it] … But if you are insecure, or if you’re avoidant, then you’re more likely to get lured into this unhealthy spending behavior.”

Okay, I almost missed this part. I want to unread it so bad. How do I make my brain forget that someone compared spending habits to attachment styles to avoid ever making capitalism responsible for anything. 😑 Deep breaths. Okay.

I have definitely been plagued by the “hobby must be productive” mentality. For example, in the context of a video game, framing it around what I’m “accomplishing” within the game, since the game itself is not producing anything. Or in the context of language learning, viewing it as something that needs to show results for it to be worth doing.

I think it ties into a sort of perfectionism for me. But anyway, I agree with you that a hobby does not need to “qualify” as a hobby, for lack of a better word. It can just be a thing that you do. Now as for applying that to my own mind in practice, that’s a whole other question. 😅

I’ve worn a mask the entire time and self-isolated a lot. My whole approach to this topic from the start was in good faith, to better understand where people are at with it and if possible, to reinforce my own reasons for wearing a mask.

I’m sorry but fuck off with this.

I can empathize with how bad you have it, though I can’t pretend to say I understand it, as I’m not immunocompromised. But I’m not going to go along with a tone that implies real struggles people are dealing with aren’t real because someone else has it worse. My whole household got sick with covid at one point, after a long period of managing to avoid it, because one person was being a socialite and not masking. Thankfully we’d been able to vaccinate before that happened and there was no (known) long-term damage, but by god did it get to me after how hard I tried to manage the risk. That is real and demoralizing. I can’t even imagine how bad it is not having the vaccine as an option, but you are effectively taking shots at the messenger here. I’m trying to understand and describe a problem and what its challenges are, not make excuses for people having such a systemic lack of any sense of social responsibility.

Don’t confuse me for someone who wants to compromise on important issues because they don’t want to make waves. The problem is the practicality of it. I can’t give people more willpower to stand up on this. And sure I can go on with guilting myself or telling myself I’m doing some small amount of % harm reduction or telling myself I’m being principled, but it’s not helping me persuade anyone else or explain well to them why I’m doing it. Like what am I supposed to tell people? I’m seriously asking here. I don’t know and I don’t expect you to know either, but I really don’t know what to say to people about any of it. People are insistent on treating it as a thing you just sort of “move on from” at some point and I don’t know how to counter that. Should I yell at them about immunocompromised people? I’ve never tried that one. I honestly don’t know if it would move anyone.

People get heated sometimes, but I see a lot of compassion and thoughtfulness on Lemmygrad overall. I can see the effort you put into being thoughtful in your posts in this thread and I appreciate it. Whether you go more to hexbear or continue here, I wish you well.