The language in the article is just eugh though. Some funny bits:

Mr Xi has called food security a guozhidazhe. That is the high-flown phrase which he uses to denote “the main affairs of state” or “national priorities”. To that end, the supreme leader and his underlings emphasise the need to grow grain, rather than frivolities like fruit or flowers, on China’s limited stocks of prime arable land.

When food priority is on the task list of the state, it's bad apparently

In and around Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, officials are focusing on Mr Xi’s current priority. That means growing grain. They are making their obedience visible. Mr Xi visited the fertile Chengdu plain last year, recalling how it was known in history as “heaven’s granary”. Those words, along with Xi-isms about food security and cropland, now appear on village walls and roadside propaganda posters.

Xi is eating all the grain. Food security is a Xi-ism now

Hi comrades,

As the title suggests, how do you manage your time spent online? I personally don't use any social media aside from Lemmygrad, but I'm still struggling with being online too much, even if it's lurking here or on other websites. I try to focus on offline things, such as books mostly that I download. My biggest problem is the refresh feature, even smaller sites such as this one just become an issue because of refreshing for new posts or discussions.

As a Linux user, I can say I tried to make my desktop as offline-focused as possible. I don't use any "cloud" services etc., though I still find myself dealing with this. Perhaps it's the interface.

I do like the Small Web movement, especially protocols like Gemini or Gopher. From what I see, they're filled to the brim with conservatives and anarchists, sadly. I do lurk on YouTube via Invidious, which is probably the biggest time-waste, though there's much valuable niche content on there. Sometimes at least.

Speaking of this, I sometimes take breaks from politics to not get overwhelmed. To get updates, I usually use RSS and the Hexbear News Megathread. For the most part, it's enough. Though FOMO (fear of missing out) hits here too, as what if I'm not up to date with something important globally.

What's your experience with this, comrades?

Hi comrades

I want to start handling my nutrition and fitness better. I usually work out at home and can do pushups etc., I would say I'm quite underweight.

While I'm reading the guide by CriticalResist on Prolewiki, I decided to count my calories. I barely reach 1500 calories a day which at this point I'll go malnourished. I just feel full very quickly. I do not eat processed sugars and avoid sweets, and I'm basically vegan at this point.

I exercise too and can do push ups, squats etc with no problems whatsoever, though as expected I cannot build muscular mass, most likely because of my nutrition. I don't have the money to go to a gym so I want as much as possible to work out at home, I saw that calisthenics might be a good option? Though they seem unreliable for building muscle mass and strength. I want to put more weight but not fatty weight, which had happened to me in the past. I do eat healthy, but I eat way too less because I feel I just get full quickly. This might be due that in the past I was overweight and conditioned myself to not eat much, but now I'm basically starving myself.

How would I go about increasing my caloric intake while putting muscle mass (preferably at home)?

Hello comrades!

I want to outline a few potential projects the Lemmygrad community could benefit from and expand its reach. I think they could foster real growth and be not only of help, but actively create counter-spaces to the Right in various domains.

FOSS in this case means free and open source. For more information, check out this.

Privacy Guide

I'm personally interested in tech privacy. The biggest places around are r/privacy, and PrivacyGuides, the de facto flagship website for privacy and security advice.

The sub-Reddit is known to be overtly against China and non-western FOSS communities. It's mostly a circlejerk of Westerners screaming "We don't want to be like 1984 China!" without any kind of material analysis. Besides, Reddit is Reddit and we know how that goes.

Now, PrivacyGuides. It is definitely a helpful resource, but there are a few issues with it. First off, the administrators frequently promote Apple products on their forum, one of them, Jonathan, even being an Apple fanboy. Apple products are non-FOSS and shouldn't be trusted, especially since they're in PRISM and collaborate with the NSA. This leaves out all the drama they've been through since they split with privacytools.io, the latter claiming PrivacyGuides stole thousands of euros from them.

What I'm saying is that I think there's a need for a more community-based approach, with a strong Marxist tendency to counter liberals and conservatives (and sometimes ancaps) in the privacy field. This has the potential to educate people, even radicalize perhaps. This is related to the second project.

edit: We could also add an Internet etiquette guide for Lemmygrad members. This could include safety procedures while posting, general privacy advice and more, in order to not get targeted by the US.

Hosted Services

Lemmygrad can expand itself and offer hosted services for its members. They can include a Git forge, e-mail (although this one is debatable if it's worth it because of security practices), PeerTube, and any other service that is deemed useful by the community. I think the format outlined below could be useful.

I'm tying up my idea here with the concept of public access unix systems, or short for "pubnixes". They've recently had a revival, the tradition dating back to the '80s. In a nutshell, someone provides a Linux/BSD server and gives user accounts to people who request them. It has a strong focus on using the shell, and anti-corporate service alternatives. Sadly, it's dominated by either conservatives or anarcho-capitalists, rarely seeing a ML on there. I think this can be improved a lot upon, because Marxists have missed this opportunity to radicalize people in the "Small Web" communities. We need a healthier and better overall version of the Web, and I think it can provide a useful outlet for not only radicalizing new comrades, but educating everyone on technology and how to use it safely and in a healthy manner. If you're interested in checking out the Small Web movement, check out this manifesto. Gopher and Gemini, being the two most popular non-WWW protocols, are completely dominated by conservatives and such. A ML presence there could help turn the tide in the small/sustainable computing sphere.

I'm also thinking of setting up a mechanism of democratically run services, trying to destroy the "benevolent dictator" mechanism the software administrators have. I'm only aware of one attempt so far at this, here.

Healthy Computing

Speaking of healthy, this could be a potential third project, a mental wellness guide for technology. Of course, with a strong focus on FOSS projects. I think we need better structured resources for people to access, more "polished", in order to garner attention as viable alternatives to what liberals and conservatives are pushing online. There is a lot of pseudo-science regarding mental health in general, and especially regarding computing, so it could be a fully featured guide to say the least.

This could tie in with other resources written from a ML standpoint for people, perhaps countering the whole "self improvement" movement with diverse explanations and such.

Zine

I think Lemmygrad could publish a Zine. ML-themed findings from the Web, personal essays, stories, and anything fitting. Then it can be easily printed. Monthly releases would be neat. Could also include the news of that month, and so on. Could make a fitting alternative for paid Leftist monthly newspapers and such.

Contributing

I want this to be up for public debate so everyone can contribute with ideas! I'm personally versed in hosting things, but additional help is very much needed. If you want to contribute with an idea, or are skilled in contributing directly to any of these projects, let's get in touch. Perhaps we could get the Revolutionary Technical Committee involved in this if they're willing to contribute to a Marxist technological "front".

What do you think of what I've outlined above? Let's discuss.