askchapo

Once in a while I see a picture I dont understand, and I wish there was alt text for it so I could learn more about it.

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Come in with what you have the energy for: it's important to let yourself feel your feelings, you really don't have to blunt yourself in these sorts of situations just because being a little more polite or a little more verbose maybe has a slightly better chance of getting your point across. I think trans women are often deathly afraid of "taking up space" and end up becoming prone to being overly self-critical or self-flagellating, almost as if we're looking for reasons to say we're wrong or undeserving. I'm certainly not immune to that, either, but I try to be cognizant of it. In this case, just saying "very cis take" is a laconism that doesn't necessarily spell out the issue, but that sort of laconism is only unproductive if it doesn't inspire reflection on the part of OP — and whether OP responds to upset by thinking "damn, maybe this was a bad take" depends on how sage OP is, which is OP's responsibility, not yours. You have a right to be mad, and not volunteer your mental health for another's sake, "each according to ability".

I find that it's pretty rare that I get mad at people who are mad at me. There are some times when differences really are irreconcilable, yes, but in most cases, I will either listen and pretty quickly understand that I was wrong, or if I know to begin with that the anger is coming from a misunderstanding, then I don't actually feel like the anger is directed at me, and I can deescalate. Especially on a site like this where everyone is already going to be on edge. Never will I say that people don't have a right to be mad. If people insist upon you being polite at all times, that you must never show your upset, then that just creates a culture where the only people who can speak are those who can treat politics like a game, the privileged who don't have much to lose.

Another important idea: just culture. This is another point that a lot of Hexbears struggle with: you shouldn't be saying "who's to blame" but rather "what caused the problem", because "mistakes are generally a product of faulty organizational cultures, rather than solely brought about by the person or persons directly involved." I first started to think about this because I used to watch a lot of Mentour Pilot and just culture is the basis of plane crash reports, and I really do think that a lot of people's lives would be a lot better if they started thinking in those terms instead of blaming others or blaming themselves. A lot of the posts I see on !selfcrit@hexbear.net really feel like they boil down to "I did a bad thing and I'm sorry" instead of actually reflecting on what happened and what can be done going forward. You're saying that you "let it get to you more than you ought to have", but what does that actually mean? Setting aside that I think you're in your right to be laconically mad to begin with, but you didn't exactly print a permission slip and hand it to this post and say "OK, you can cause me to be mad now" and then the post said "very good, I will cause you to be mad now" and then you were mad. No, you saw something that made you feel despair about the world, and you responded as if you were feeling despair about the world, because you were.

Somewhat tangential, but I often find myself thinking about the whole Daoist parable of the river, where the water bends around the stone, and yet the stone is still eroded by the water, "action without action" or wu wei — that idea that by spontaneity and non-interference all things will be done in due time, to do things without forcing them. I dunno. The concept has been interpreted and misinterpreted in so many ways over the millennia, yet I still try to consider the idea in my daily life, and I have to wonder what the wu wei response to someone's accelerationism would've been for you. I'm pretty certain the response you actually had — a response that said all it really needed to without any extra effort — is closer than the response you think you should've made in hindsight.

You should watch SPARKLE ON RAVEN: The Life of DrillGirl; it is a very good show. {Cēterum|Furthermore} {cēnseō|I think} {iūs auctōris|copyright} {esse dēlendum|must be destroyed}.

Seriously, like people are talking a big game about American threats of annexation and how we all hate America now (I'll enjoy it while it lasts, it's nice to be able to say "fuck america" and have people agree with me for once even though I know they heard "fuck trump") but the second there's a choice between supporting america or one of their victims Carney couldn't move to condemn the Iranian "regime" fast enough. It's fucking pathetic, literally zero sense of solidarity (unsurprising coming from a white settler state) even when IRANIANS ARE ACTUALLY BEING FUCKING MURDERED. But noooo trump tweeting some stupid ai map showing Canada as part of America that's a bridge too far

Of course, he is very actively trying to hamstring any socialist projects. He is just slightly less competent at it than the Dems IMO. This is not a material difference, so is negligible overall in terms of importance. No one should be working for Trump thinking it will benefit socialism in any way whatsoever.

What you're proposing is not a viable tactic, it is not a viable strategy.

I did not propose anything, certainly not voting for Trump as a harm reduction strategy. I'm just pointing out that Trump has probably done less damage to international socialism than a marginally more intelligent imperial admin run by the Dems would have.

Lenin advocated participating in bourgeois elections and even wrote a whole book about it, and how people who were absolutists were politically undeveloped.

The Vaush argument is not an effective one. Lenin was certainly not suggesting to vote for Dems.

How does taking the #1 thing we criticize the democrats for and using it to support Trump make any sense?

This is an uncharitable read of what I was saying. Do not mistake me for a lib suggesting that you vote for or support the lesser evil. Supporting Trump for this reason is as foolish as when we criticize the dems for it. Our point should be that lesser-evilism is not an effective strategy to achieving our goals. Who tf cares who the lesser evil is if it is evil regardless?

I was merely suggesting that if we look at the actions of bourgeois leaders, Trump is creating an environment more favorable to the objective of liberating the world from American imperialism by overextending the military on strategic blunders while diminishing American soft power on silly threats towards euroklanadian crackkker countries.

Operationally, from the standpoint of building socialism in the US, Trump probably does make things harder. My point is that US hegemony will be destroyed by developing areas in the global south, not expecting some bs white savior syndrome of Marxist revolution in the US before then.

What I said is only incoherent if you are inferring shit that I did not imply. Ffs do I need a dozen asterisks on Hexbear so people dont read this shit as support for Trump? I expect that shit from liberal.world, but not here.