🏳️🌈 hi there, i’m blake! i’m a silly gay bear 🌀
The Metropolitan Police has designated Whitehall, Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square for a far-right demonstration led by Tommy Robinson on May 16, while refusing the Palestine Coalition its requested route for a Nakba commemoration planned for the same day.
Sounds like a Minecraft Mod waiting to happen.
Lechecraft allows you to milk all mammal mobs, turn milk into three different preparations, and assemble those milk products in any way you want. The goal? To leche like no one has ever leched before!
Compatible with all good automation mods!
My bad, I’m autistic and struggle to tell sometimes! Sorry for preaching to the converted :p
The media are owned and controlled by the ruling class - the same class of people who also own and control for-profit prisons, and also own and control elected politicians through lobbying.
As I always say, under capitalism, democracy means the power of the state is auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society’s wealth, that inevitably means that there’s less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don’t increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.
The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there’s no solution that the ruling class can offer. They’re causing all of the problems, to fix them they’d have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that’s not something they’re going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to “fix” it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.
So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn’t actually get any better. Either the problem wasn’t minority A, or minority A just hasn’t been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.
To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.
That’s exactly how fascism manifests. It’s because it’s possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It’s just a matter of time.
While, of course, some laws to reform capitalism can be passed, and would definitely alleviate the worst harm caused, over the long term, capitalism cannot be reformed.
Any attempts to reform, democratize or socialize capitalism may yield short term improvements to quality of life of the working class, but if capitalism is not abolished, it will always reassert itself, and capitalism inevitably leads towards fascism.
The New Deal prevented the US from sliding into fascism in the 20th century, so that’s ultimately a good thing, but it did not go far enough, and that’s why we have the resurgence of fascism in the 21st century America.
This is gonna sound really terrible, but… I generally don’t recognize people by name so much… maybe something dyslexia related? I think there are a couple of rare exceptions, like the user with two letters and then four numbers in their name.
I recognize lots of avatars, as I scroll around, but I don’t generally register the names or even descriptions of the images, just kind of like… my brain just remembers purplish-blob shape, red glowy circle, monochromatic goblet.
Oh, and dancing banana, and blue name furry. I actually remember his, it’s Kolanki I think
All of you users with no avatar, go get one so I remember you all please! It’s an accessability aid in a way :p
Flying Squid was an auto-block for me, as soon as I made my account. He always used to ban me because he couldn’t win arguments with me in the comments.
Edit to spill the tea:
Hello Lemmy.world admin team, I am writing to complain about the conduct of the moderator FlyingSquid.
On two occasions I have had negative interactions with FlyingSquid on the /world community, both times he has used, or threatened to use, his moderator powers against me, because of his personal disagreements with me.
I am happy to refer you to both conversations:
In this conversation, we had a long conversation about laws and politics. Personally, I feel he acted in bad faith on several occasions throughout our conversation, in my opinion, he was trying to bait me into getting upset so he could righteously ban me.
And your silly prediction is wrong. I am not going to ban you for this despite the incivility rule violation. I am just going to stop talking to you.
But you have just earned yourself the eye of a moderator who will not tolerate your rule-breaking with anyone else. Including if I see any in your recent history.
More recently, we had a conversation today:
Again, in this conversation, he was, in my opinion, highly rude, dismissive and arguing in bad faith. He even admitted as much. I said I wasn’t interested in talking with him, he continued to push me for an answer, and then said:
You didn’t let me down, because I knew you didn’t actually have an answer
I completely understand that sometimes people get heated or struggle to deal with arguments where they care about the topic, so I am totally willing to look past that. However, I am not willing to look past his abuse of power.
What a bullshit cop-out. I have asked you multiple times what the next step is and you’re now claiming I’m not interested?
That’s two lies you’ve told about me now. That is coming close to trolling. This is seemingly a pattern for FlyingSquid - goading people he disagrees with into becoming frustrated with his bad-faith arguments, then accusing them of “trolling” when the people he experiences push-back, and using that as an excuse to ban someone he disagrees with.
I was writing a response to his post pointing out that he was arguing in bad faith when I accidentally submitted it half-way through, when he suspended me for “trolling”.
I do not believe that he has the disposition to be a moderator if he gets so upset at a polite discussion that he feels compelled to use moderator powers to silence dissent. I go out of my way to be as polite, kind and compassionate as possible and to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I do not believe we should allow those in a position of trust or power to use that to settle their personal disputes. I know there has been some issues with that recently regarding the vegan community so I am hopeful that you will do the right thing and either remove his moderator powers or at the very least let him know that his abuse of powers is not tolerated.
I would prefer not to make a community spectacle out of this, hence the email.
Thanks and all the best,
So, for context, I have pretty severe PTSD, on bad days I have entire hours that go missing due to dissociation and the like, and my experience with EMDR is that it is wholly inappropriate for the treatment of extremely traumatic memories, and runs a pretty heavy risk of re-traumatizing.
Re-processing traumatic memories is a great way to overcome them, but I think that it is best done with a very slow, very careful approach, at a pace set by, and comfortable to the person going through the process.
EMDR is an attempt to kinda “brute force” the process, rather than slowly peeling away the layers and making the traumatic memory accessible and bearable a little at a time and reprocessing it that way.
Just my thoughts and experiences, not a professional.
I’m not really a fan of approaches like EMDR or CBT, I’m sure it has helped some people, but personally, I think just normal talking therapies where you discuss and explore your feelings in a validating, safe environment is the best approach, no gimmicks, no “one neat trick” bullshit, just talking through your fears, feelings, worries, without judgment.
anyways, sorry to hear that shit is bad where you are, I really hope stuff gets better for you soon <3
I’m really sorry to hear about your negative experiences, that sounds really rough.
Doctors, in my experience, fucking suck with mental health issues. I wouldn’t go to a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but rather someone who specializes in person-centered therapy/counselling.
I think this is quite unfair, and might dissuade people from considering therapy. therapy is absolutely fantastic and changed my life - heck, it saved my life.
I guess it depends a lot on the therapist, but both of the therapists I saw were entirely concerned about what I wanted from therapy, rather than “curing” me or anything like that
Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society’s wealth, that inevitably means that there’s less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don’t increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.
The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there’s no solution that the ruling class can offer. They’re causing all of the problems, to fix them they’d have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that’s not something they’re going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to “fix” it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.
So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn’t actually get any better. Either the problem wasn’t minority A, or minority A just hasn’t been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.
To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.
That’s exactly how fascism manifests. It’s because it’s possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It’s just a matter of time.
While, of course, some laws to reform capitalism can be passed, and would definitely alleviate the worst harm caused, over the long term, capitalism cannot be reformed.
Any attempts to reform, democratize or socialize capitalism may yield short term improvements to quality of life of the working class, but if capitalism is not abolished, it will always reassert itself, and capitalism inevitably leads towards fascism.
The New Deal prevented the US from sliding into fascism in the 20th century, so that’s ultimately a good thing, but it did not go far enough, and that’s why we have the resurgence of fascism in the 21st century America.
Yeah, the soviet union had a lot of problems, Stalin was a psycho. Let’s not do that, but we can do socialism using a bottom-up, direct democratic, consensus based decision making approach, rather than a top-down, centralized state. We can learn from the mistakes of the past.
I’d encourage you to check out an anarchist FAQ to learn more - If you haven’t heard much about anarchism before, you probably have some misconceptions about it, so I encourage you to watch the Q&Anarchy video series by Thought Slime or have a look through an Anarchist FAQ, because it’s almost definitely nothing like what you think.
I personally believe that it’s the most coherent philosophy which adequately explains and addresses all of the problems which plague our society, and which holds the most promise for a path out of the inevitable cycle of the continuous rise and fall of fascism that capitalism makes inevitable.
You can’t attack me by calling me a socialist. Of course I’m a socialist. The future presents a very clear choice: socialism, or fascism. I choose socialism. You, clearly, choose fascism. I suspect that socialism will win this battle, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Calling me akin to Greta is unbelievably complimentary. Greta is a fucking badass, widely admired across the world.
Don’t worry, no matter what, I will continue to fight for you and your best interests, because we’re both working class, and working class solidarity is everything. Much love, take care <3
You can be anti-capitalist and anti-China. In my opinion, China is a state-capitalist nation. I also hate the authoritarianism and repression of China. I actually briefly dated a Chinese person but we broke up because I refused to accept that the PLA was a force for good. I’m also banned from like, a dozen communities on lemmy.ml for arguing with tankies.
even comparing democraticly institutioned capitalism to fascism (omfg!!!)
Most fascist states emerged from democracies. Both Mussolini and Hitler were democratically elected in liberal nations. Israel is a democracy.
Lenin has coined a specific term for pro-socialist lunatics in the West: useful idiots.
Lenin didn’t coin the term “useful idiot”, why would he call educated people who understand his preferred scientific theory to describe relations between the ruling class and working class as idiots? But if you don’t believe me, you can check Wikipedia:
This statement has traditionally been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is not supported by any evidence.
Please, open your mind a little, I promise you’ll be okay, your brain won’t fall out.
The world is nuanced and not the simple false dichotomy you want to believe in.
Possibly - I did consider writing western capitalist/chinese capitalist and chose not to for brevity. It’s okay, though, it spawned some productive conversations, I think. Sorry for snapping at you, I was getting sleepy at that point too, had a nap now <3
I’m exhausted of replying to this question again and again. Just read through any of the comment chains for the answers you seek.
this EU change would still benefit the general population better than no change at all
I don’t agree, but to be honest with you, I don’t see any need to discuss it further. My entire reason for my original comment was to build class consciousness, and it sounds like you’ve already got it, so my work is done here! Take care, much love, solidarity forever.
Because it is directly affecting you. Unfair competition means chinese companies get a bigger market share globally while european companies get a smaller market share globally. That means more jobs in China, less jobs in the EU. That affects the general popuation immensely.
And finally, we arrive at the crux of the issue. This is basically an argument that the existence of jobs is important as a fundamental principle. I do not agree with it. I believe that we shouldn’t continue to operate inefficient businesses for the benefit of capital owners just because jobs are created as a consequence.
I believe that all of the necessities for human life - food, water, education, healthcare, shelter, and so on - should be absolutely guaranteed to be provided to everyone, and eliminate the need for people to work in jobs that otherwise could be eliminated.
If you understand this perspective, you’ll hopefully understand the rest of my argument. We should just let inefficient businesses fail, and not force people to be wage slaves to have a comfortable existence.
Of course it’s an instance of it. Why should I, as a consumer, give a fuck about competition between capitalists and states?
Who cares where the corporation profiting from my car purchase is headquartered? All of that profit is going to be hoarded by some rich bastard either way.
I don’t care at all if my car is made in the EU from Chinese parts, made in China by an EU company, made in China by a Chinese company, none of that shit matters even a little bit, and it shouldn’t matter to you, either.
All I care about is how much I have to pay for the car. This policy will make my car more expensive, because the EU wants to ensure that the European car manufacturers can continue to make €€€.
That’s all this is.
If they cared about protecting jobs or ensuring strategic industries, they’d nationalize them, but no, they’re left in the hands of privately owned corporations, supported by the state, which is filled with elected representatives whose election campaigns were funded by the auto manufacturing lobby.
I don’t know how more clearly I can spell it out. It’s corporatism, pure and simple. A democracy under capitalism just means that the power of the state is auctioned to the highest bidders. That’s what the EU does, that’s what it’s for, and it has always been so.
That’s why I kept asking questions on things you said.
And yet, there’s not a single question in your previous comment, just a lot of weak arguments and claims that I hold positions I specifically stated I do not hold.
You don’t want to actually discuss and understand my position, you want to debate a pro-China strawman. You don’t need me to win an argument in your head. Take care.
Capitalism is a very complicated machine with many moving parts, so explaining how society changes as a function of capitalism in a written medium requires quite a lot of words, but just for you, I’ll try to summarize: