askchapo

Relevant to the question of why more people aren't organizing in response to everything that's going on.

I relate to this personally. We constantly tell ourselves to focus on what we can control, and that's what I do. I try to organize with my local orgs, push people I meet left, talk unions at restaurants and businesses all over, and avoid spending $ at BDS companies. But I also have family and a stable job that I actually like for the first time in forever. I feel like I don't do enough but also the risk of doing more is so great I understand why I keep to "safe" things.

IDK how France does it. How did the Bolsheviks pull it off? I know the Chinese peasantry were under much worse conditions than burgerlanders. Are people like me essentially "paid off" by the material conditions 🤔

I see this moon launch as an exorbitantly wasteful, nationalist project. No money for healthcare and housing, but plenty of money to boldly go where man has gone several many times before.

When I bring this up with liberal friends and family, they give me a sort of incredulous look and talk about how wonderful and scientific and non-political it is. I don't mind being the "you've gone too far left" guy, but you talk to the same people about military spending and they're right on board.

Is someone here able to diagnose my crankiness and explain why this is actually a good use of resources? (Will also accept echo-chamber validation and ways to use this to increase class consciousness, if offered.)

Please answer quickly!

Edit: I accidentally typed "100 days" instead of "10 days"

I’m mostly interested in a general overview on the bounds we know of on what topics can be (de)politicised (without immediate societal collapse), how its status of politicisation in different societies came to be, and what the effects of (de)politicisation of certain topics are on the political engagement of the general public.

Would love to know people’s thoughts as well on this topic.

For example: in my liberal education I learned that political engagement in the Soviet Union was different than in current liberal democracies. It was more focused on a local and community level rather than a national one. Supposedly because that’s where people had more influence compared to in liberal democracies, where national elections grab the attention of a large part of the population and direct their energy to national issues. As I said, I learned about the Soviet Union in liberal education so I don’t fully trust this analysis to be true without more reliable backing. I would love to learn more.

Let's say, hypothetically, I run a soup kitchen. We get donated goods that are mostly things about to expire, or considered too "imperfect" for sale. That is; things which are perfectly fine to eat, but businesses usually throw out, and will probably be less generous with as the crisis hits.

I can anticipate now that demand will increase on the soup kitchen's services, while simultaneously our inputs decrease....

I guess this may be an intractable problem, really. Other than trying to build new connections in the community, which usually takes a lot of time and energy, there's probably nothing that can be done. But, people on here have given me very thoughtful and clever answers before, so figured I'd ask.

There’s a popular community on Lemmy called BuyEuropean, but Europe’s voting record at the UN seems just as problematic as that of the US and Israel. This makes me question whether boycotting European products in favor of Chinese ones might be more ethical, even though there isn’t a dedicated community for that.

The best alternative I can think of is using AliExpress instead of Amazon. Does anyone know where to find alternatives to products made in China?

I see this moon launch as an exorbitantly wasteful, nationalist project. No money for healthcare and housing, but plenty of money to boldly go where man has gone several many times before.

When I bring this up with liberal friends and family, they give me a sort of incredulous look and talk about how wonderful and scientific and non-political it is. I don't mind being the "you've gone too far left" guy, but you talk to the same people about military spending and they're right on board.

Is someone here able to diagnose my crankiness and explain why this is actually a good use of resources? (Will also accept echo-chamber validation and ways to use this to increase class consciousness, if offered.)

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11229507

Recently, my country—not in European or American continents—will pass a bill about requiring ID for creating any social media account. There's a justified panic about it since the ghouls who runs the country sold our every single personal information repeatedly.

I've watched a person talking about the recent news, and they mentioned the "Social Credit System" of China. The person said if one's credit score is low, they can't ride a train or their children won't be able to go to good schools.

Now, the person is rather left leaning, and they usually talk about the capitalism's harm on human psyche. But them comparing the SCS to the ID verification gave me the ick. Is there any good explanation—whether in English or other languages—about the SCS? That way, I can refute the further misinformation about it.

I refuse to believe not even Lenin has been adapted into a manhua, it cannot be real [that it hasn't been done so yet], so how do I find it?

I've been trying to stay sober lately but life's been making it difficult. Just curious or anyone has tried those apps and if they work well, could use all the help I can.

I randomly saw a tweet saying that the USA would run out of oil by April 15. Obviously I have no idea if this is accurate. (The USA currently imports 10% of its oil from West Asia.) But...what if it is accurate? Or what if the USA runs out of oil in a few months instead? Will we see bread riots, a possible revolution, or capitulation to Iran?

I randomly imagined an officers' coup where the military and some bourgeoisie cut their losses and agree to Iran's proposals, withdrawing the US military from West Asia, paying reparations for the war and decades of sanctions, and purchasing oil from the region in yuan. In this scenario, the USA continues to exist but is severely weakened, and the ruling class has to figure out how to sell things to China in order to get yuan to purchase oil. It's basically Neo-Weimar / American Weimar / Weimar USA. "Israel" vanishes and 90%+ of its settler population somehow makes its way back to western countries.

I know this is a wildly optimistic scenario. I'm just spitballing. How do you imagine things shaking out over the next few months?

Im making a post after a nightmare I just had. I considered letting sleeping dogs lie, but if I damn my eternal soul, so be it /jk… or am I? hehe

So, entertain the thought for a moment: magic is real. You yes, you could do magic and put hexes and spells on people after some studying.

But without any organizational backing, that seems like a bad idea. Of course, big nation-states would have their own sorcerers and witches. So youd have to get organized, or you might get taken out by some ops unit or a rogue operative while youre binding a level 7 demonic entity.

What I’m saying is: if magic were real (and let’s just entertain it for worldbuilding purposes), the USA would 100% be practicing advanced, high-level magic through various organizations that serve it. And not just any magic, but the darkest kind human sacrifices, blood magic, ritual orgies, that type of stuff.

So, as someone whos always been curious about the paranormal and has a bunch of different magical tomes around the house, it seems very dangerous to practice magic alone without the backing of an organized movement, or at least a coven of like-minded people.

I dont think trying to put a spell on a US president, for example, would work just like that. There must be counterspells and powerful wards in place.

Not sure where to ask this, but I am looking for a followup post to this post on reddit. Does anyone know where I can find an undeleted copy or where I should be looking? I've searched all the reddit undeleters and can't find it. Link to said deleted post.

Every time I spend some time browsing the comment sections of the internet I kind of want to give up on everything. I don't because I know it's wrong, but the psychic damage is severe. And I'm doing all this sober.

Sometimes I wish I was more intelligent and could participate in more serious projects, but I'm not worthy and nobody seems to want to accept me. Which is fair idk why they'd accept me when there's always a superior choice that's faster, better, stronger than myself. Why would an org recruit me? Especially when you can automate so much nowadays, why would they have me there?

It feels like I'm just a rusty cog and why would anyone want to put that in their machine when there's brand new ones and the social machines need less and less cogs?

I'm not naive enough to expect the entire world to change itself to benefit me, someone they didn't even ask to be born. So why should people give a shit about the poor decisions of my parents? The sad things is afaik my father's out there making even more children. Be careful what you wish for when you boost your population numbers. Look at what you get. I'm completely useless.

Here in burgerland, it seems there's no end to the ways that people can bury their heads in the sand or just all together deny that awful things are happening. But I'm wondering, what are the critical social structures that, if attacked, will be an undeniable shattering of the illusion for most people?

Don't know if this makes sense, I'm very eepy.

Any merit to them?