Absolutely. It goes “educate, agitate, organize” for a reason. In the imperial core being a capitalist is a default state of things, so it’s up to us to help people see differently. More and more people are being shoved into the contradictions of capitalism face-first through economic crises, wars, climate disasters, and reactionary policies and policing. But there’s still a lot of privileged people who are personally insulated from the direct effects. Having them on our side is much better than letting them fall into the (shortest ever) liberal-fascist pipeline. That’s where educating comes in, when we have to charitably explain stuff at the risk of the person not being genuine and wasting our effort.

Good ole moral dilemma of “is it cool to blow up the school if there’s a school shooter inside”. A true philosophical struggle, really.

There are a lot of reasons why people in this community would dislike your message. But on the very fundamental level you’re correct, voting for the less reactionary party is better. As you said “it’s a two party system”, but keep in mind that these parties are not two polar opposites that people have to split between. On the contrary, in most regards they’re protecting the same interests, which are never your average American’s. Of the things you mentioned would suffer under Trump here is what democrats did:

• Abortion is illegal in 14 states and limited in many more

• Trans rights are being repealed in multiple states, Florida being the leader in inhumane treatment of genderqueer people

• Slavery is legal for prisoners (13th amendment), and prisons are at their most populated right now

• Child labor protections are being rolled back and now we have tweens working nights in slaughterhouses

• Worker strikes have been discouraged and killed

• After the Uvalde shooting basically nothing was done about gun accessibility or cops’ response model

• Immigration and environmental policies are pretty much carbon copy of Trump’s - more fracking, willow project, title 42 staying on for years, current proposals for metering the border

• White nationalist rallies and general rhetoric are protected under the discrimination laws, yet a house representative gets an official reprimand for voicing her discontent with genocidal actions of Israel

American politics normally have a ratchet effect. GOP moves the country to the right, and stop Dems from any leftwing momentum. But Biden is straight up moving everything to the right himself. So either way you’re voting against the things that you mentioned you care about.

Don’t feel bad for not reading “enough”. Capitalism is indeed shit, so you can just go from there. Doing stuff irl is more important that debating the nuances of state and revolution on twitter. Check out your local social orgs - mutual help funds, soup kitchens, shelters, etc. If you have free time, they could always use your help. And you can make some like-minded friends along the way.

There’s a lot of confusion, other comments addressed it pretty well. Meanwhile you might be interested in looking into IPFS. It’s kinda like the internet over torrent.

For a modern example - Cuba’s family code today is one of the most progressive on the planet. It’s legitimately hard to believe, especially with how broadly it defines “family”- https://nacla.org/cubas-new-family-code-window-political-ecosystem

For a more historical view - USSR decriminalized homosexuality in 1922. Later in 1934 “sodomy” was outlawed again. Here’s a letter from a british gay commie to Stalin arguing against this change, I think it’s right up your alley: https://www.marxist.com/letter-to-stalin-can-a-homosexual-be-in-the-communist-party.htm

Damn, I sure would hate it if the grocery prices in Canada were to plummet. Instead of going up 40% in the last ten years. I should be thankful though, at least it’s not like the rent that went up 50% since covid. Boy, I sure love the stimulated economy.

I’ve seen is a blurry video of like, two women, sitting in a room supposedly peeling garlic with their mouths

Kinky

The window for you to wake up easily is around 20 minutes. Just keep adjusting for the next few days. Sleep isn’t something that can be fixed overnight, it’s a very complex process that isn’t even fully understood.

Another thing that helped me was to change my framing of the wake-up time. I used to be like “it’s 11pm, I have an alarm set for 6am, if I fall asleep right now - it’s 7 hours, pretty good. Gotta sleep!”. And then half an hour later it’s 6:30 left to sleep, then it’s only 6 hours. I’d often lay through the entire night like that. And so what helped was to start thinking “I’m getting up at 6, and there’s that. Until then I have time to myself, and if I can fall asleep - cool, if not - I’ll watch some youtube on my phone, or grab a snack, whatever”.

When I stopped treating sleep like this expensive commodity that loses value every moment that I’m awake, and instead started to tell myself that it’s just another thing to do, it alleviated a lot of pressure. Fighting yourself to sleep isn’t going to work long-term, you’re much better off listening to your body and going with it. Even if it means some days you’ll have less hours clocked in bed.

If you’d like to go to bed earlier but have trouble doing it - try taking melatonin 60-90 minutes before the desired bedtime. It both helps to fall asleep faster and to shift your natural hormone production over a couple of weeks.

Another thing is that you might be setting an alarm for the wrong time. You have different phases of sleep that make up a ~90 minute cycle, though the actual length varies. Ideally you’d want to wake up right between those cycles. Since you said you usually get around 7 hours of sleep, that likely puts your alarm right in the middle of deep sleep. Try setting it an hour earlier and add 10 minutes every day to find a sweet spot, you’ll know the difference.

Also naps are sick. Either for 20-25 minutes so you don’t fall too deep, or a full 100+ minute cycle (first one is a bit longer than the rest).

And finally sleep hygiene is important. Dim light and screens (better yet no screens) an hour before bed, no big meals or caffeine, preferably a chilly room. Chamomile tea absolutely slaps, too. Sleep well comrade.

So fluffy and cute

The foundation of colonialism/imperialism is the heavy imbalance of power. The relationship between countries is about as consensual as was Andrew Tate’s with his cam models.

You can usually find English movie showings. Either in proper theaters, or sometimes in public centers, game cafes, etc. You can look those up on ig/fb/local boards. From my experience people there are pretty open to socializing. Smaller shows for international bands can also work. And just stuff that’s not too reliant on language in the first place - gym, sport activities/events, food festivals.

If you are experiencing alienation that strongly, there are definitely other people who are in the same boat and are looking for new connections.

Same. Don’t sully the beautiful and working maglev trains with that garbage scam that killed any HSR hopes for millions of Californians.

Holy fucking copium. The entire thing is “we’re only interested in our national and strategic interests, but that’s actually good for both parties”.

The year began with the relationship at a historic low point. A year ago this week, a Chinese spy balloon traveled across the United States

Lmao

Databases are not really about what information is stored, but instead how it’s going to be used. Compared to writing software you have to kinda think backwards while designing them. So not “we create a profile to calculate everything that goes into the economic planning”, but “what simplest parts constitute the economy”.

To give you a direct example - you’d need a dataset for people Person() who use and manipulate the economy, and another for stuff made of individual Thing() that together form it. You can say that people have a labour_value property to them. And things could have their production/maintenance Thing().labour_cost expressed in that Person().labour_value.

From there it’s about actual programming and understanding the smaller parts of the problem as you solve it step by step. You can delve deeper into additional relationships between people and stuff- Person().basic_needs_cost, Thing().lifetime, Thing().transportation_cost(Person().location), whatever.

To put it very simply, programming is about having a refined final idea and breaking it into simpler parts. Data architecture, on the other hand, is taking the basic components and building the details on top of them.

Tldr: just watch this second thought video instead, https://youtu.be/kbEavDqA8iE

This one was kinda dogshit. Nothing of actual substance, conflating very different things (shelters, temporary, and permanent housing), saying “the government makes it too complicated, that’s the problem”.

Capitalism needs a permanent underclass. Homelessness, which is conveniently criminalized, is just one expression of that. While you work at the soul crushing factory, you’re at least somewhat comforted that you are better off than that dude sleeping outside your condo building. From which you are one missed paycheck away from being evicted.

Homeless industrial complex is a combination of bad management, bad incentives, and bad market conditions

Typical liberal argument. Replace “HIC” with literally anything and it will work just as well, meaning not at all.

According to a dude and other service workers, the results of the program was that housing homeless people will not provide the place for people to stay off the streets, but would just concentrate the problems that put people there in the first place.

This is so incredibly stupid and malicious, that it’s only appropriate that in the next sentence it turns out this guy is being charged with identity fraud and theft. It’s the exact same flavor as “people in ghettos just have a culture of violence and disorder. Even if we tried to improve the conditions, they would still end up the same way”.

There are tons of studies showing that the housing-first approach is working better than anything else while being the most cost-effective. People get better quicker, stay out of the streets more often, and overall have much better quality of life than those who rely on temporary shelter and/or services (addiction, mental health, training and employment) without the stable housing.

There are great projects that work efficiently and effectively. Homekey is the one in California. Over 3 years they built 15000 homes, with the vast majority being permanent housing.

https://www.hcd.ca.gov/grants-and-funding/homekey

Just a reminder of this banger

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/antisoviet-warrior-puts-his-army-on-the-road-to-peace-the-saudi-businessman-who-recruited-mujahedin-now-uses-them-for-largescale-building-projects-in-sudan-robert-fisk-met-him-in-almatig-1465715.html

Unironically “but the other choice is worse!”. The democrats have been doing literally the same shit that republicans did (police funding, title 42, Roe v Wade, willow project, rail strike blocking, sinophobia, etc). And even the little good they’ve done, like the student loan freeze and forgiveness, infrastructure bill, build back better/inflation reduction act, are not really their campaign focus. So we’re just doing the 2020 election 2: electric boogaloo.

I heckin love the thin blue line, israel and Palestine on the same side. Amazing post.