Hello everyone! Make yourself at home around our collective fireplace, in our time-honored tradition, the weekly discussion thread!
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This thought hasn’t fully crystallized, but it occurs to me that a reason capitalism can appear so resilient at absorbing and diluting social causes is because it actually wants social causes to exist and leverages them actively. Not just in the sense of tax breaks for charity, but also in the sense of soft power through “charitable donations”. Those who most fund an institution can also choose whether it’s able to continue, which means the institution will tend to bend to their requests out of self preservation if nothing else.
So like, capitalism doesn’t have some metaphysical power to absorb and dilute social causes (which is how it can feel at times when you watch how easily it can happen in real-time). It’s that there are processes of capital that are already directed toward making use of social causes for expanding power, so when a new one appears, all capital needs to do is evaluate if it can work for that and dilute it as needed to make it work if it doesn’t at the offset. Once it has latched on, it starts using its broader range of voice to try to take over what the conversation surrounding the cause sounds like. And it is the job of activists to dig their heels in with as clear and organized messaging as possible and shout out the capitalists on what the actual issue is; and build solutions that form socialist community power over the capitalist predatory charity model.
Every social cause is another thing the bourgeoisie can use to promote identity politics and distract from class politics. If anything they wish there were more divisions and crises to begrudgingly take mild action on in order to convince the working class that their protests are making a difference. I think a major part of the rise of trump brand fascism in usa is that the ruling class feel they have no more social causes to use as a release valve for the pressure caused by class antagonisms or at least they have opened the valves as much as they are willing to.
I hope younger people have already seen the nakedness of this process with the climate movement in the past few years and have learned from it.
I’m watching Tsukihime right now, and I’m as much as I’m enjoying it I am just totally burnt out because I’ve been watching this fucking thing for 10 hours and I still have 6 to go. Visual Novels can have the best story ever but the padding is murder.
Today, a very good news happened to the wife of a journalist that I follow! His wife received her membership card for the Communist Party of Belarus.
Gotta rewrite a whole chapter for my group project because I apparently misinterpreted it, with only a few hours left. I hate school
Update: I did it, and seems to be okay. Was a little less hard than I thought
Tbh it’s peak student moment to finish assignments with only hours or minutes left.
Quite warm here. Like 14 degrees Celsius. Crazy to see how much the weather has changed in like ten years. Haven’t even put my heating on at home so far.
It’s been below freezing where I live, but the residual heat from the other apartments lets me keep the heat off lol
Its been a really cold and wet spring/early summer where I am. We are still hovering below 20 degrees most days. I’ve never seen such a strong La Nina. It was hell on the garlic but the spring crops are happy.
Not gonna lie I saw some AI vids today and it took me longer than I’d like to admit to realise it was AI. Shit is getting scary man.
I don’t mind AI, as long if you can tell if it’s AI. They’re making them less appealing by making them too realistic
I don’t mind AI either but I was pretty shocked as I legit thought I was looking at a goofy sketch of a Dutch news broadcast for thirty second before I realised it was all AI. Everything just looked so real and sounded so real too. And this was supposed to be a funny, harmless vid but I can very easily see it being used in a different way and then people cannot seperate it from reality. I feel like we should have some mandatory AI label for this.
I know that China’s new plan around AI involves mandatory labeling of synthetic content. It certainly should be bog-standard policy but we all know what policy in capitalist societies is all about 🤑 🤑🤑
I still have the ability to immediately clock it and I have tested this with a few friends. There is a certain “uncanny valley” feel associated with them even in the most “realistic”/hard-to-tell ones. Something isn’t right with it and it makes a part of my brain go “Hey, this image isn’t natural.”
I actually don’t know what exactly it is. It’s something to do with the POV/angles/camera shots. I think if AI can start doing those organically; I may start being fooled.
Presentation today 😔
Edit: too many people asked me questions and it was quite humiliating. Do not write presentations the night before you have to do them.
Good luck!
Thank you, it was awful but at least it’s over lol
I’m glad you survived. Some people in the audience probably learned something even if it was uncomfortable for you.
im sure you’ll do well!
I hated every second of it and am still mad lol but the propranolol helped keep me from stuttering and shaking.
I would like to tell everyone I am still doing fine
Contamos contigo, camarada hiedra cachorro 🫡
Does anybody else kinda feel like USian cuisine gets a bad rep? A lot of good pasta dishes are actually USian from Italian USians. You also have Cajun cuisine and Texmex. And don’t forget native cuisine and thanksgiving food.
I think it’s because USians themselves don’t call US food US food. Kinda like how they never call themselves USian either if there’s a shred of anything foreign in their identity.
I will say that texmex tacos aint got nothing on the read deal. But I do love tater tots.
america’s pizza innovations are fucking awesome. Some tomato sauce, a blob of young cheese and some bazil on a bread base? nah. I want fixins fer days.
Lately I’ve been putting avocado on my pizza after its cooked. :chef-kiss:
I have finals this week and frankly I’ve hit that point where studying more doesn’t feel like it’d help.
I wish i had the strength to study that much. The rest of my life depends on the next 2 and a half years. The stress itself is incapacitating
The image encapsulates how i feel perfectly (edit: not serious)Not sure if this helps, but C’s get degrees. You don’t need to be the best student ever, just an average one. Most of what I’ve learned of any value has come from outside college anyway.
I haven’t hit that point but I’m exhausted and tired. I can’t do 6-7 hours days I just can’t… I would rather die than love in this system but I’m too much of a coward to even take my own life.
Emergency kitty
Seeing the snow outside today reminded me of something: one night about one dozen years ago, back when I was living in Texas, I went outside for a promenade despite the layers of snow on everything. I walked towards the lone street light on the corner.
What I witnessed amazed me: it was dead silent outside. No insects or other animals making noises. No machinery that I could hear. No wind blowing anywhere. No precipitation. Just sheer soundlessness until I started walking again. It was the first time in my life that I could go outdoors to the sound of absolutely nothing, and I’ll never forget it.
It is amazing. I used to sit outside around midnight for hours just staring at all the snow. The city pretty much ruined that for me lol
Oh my fucking god I envy you so much fuck I love snow but it barely snows once a year thanks to global warming and we cant enjoy it.
Snow silence is amazing. Pure sensory bliss.
Well NOW I am fine, I cannot speak for the future or the past
I’m back after a long, irritating stretch of trying to settle after the move, I need some lemmygrad to take my mind off my increasingly shittier living conditions
Welcome back. Sucks to hear things are going shit.
Inflation, brief legal scares (fuck landlords), and practically no more family or social circle in this new town. It’s bleak but there’s no point lamenting it
I love the christmas season, but can’t get in the holiday spirit, because I’m so stressed out from school
From the Nicaraguan magazine, Stalin:
