I see this term a lot, people saying "that's just vulgar materialism!" I haven't seen an explanation of what it is yet.

My prediction is that the corpo media will take whatever babbles or mutters about and use sophistry to spin it into an epic comeback because the "horse race" mandate is that necessary for corpo news business models.

It will be startling, even to some casual observers, that might say "wait, that rambling about Hannibal Lecter is supposed to be part of an epic comeback that places at a 50/50 chance to win again? Did I just hear that from those talking heads on TV?" And they'll get used to that as the new normal but for a moment things will feel a bit unprecedentedly strange.

Need to post to my group chat and I need to show how cool I am

I'm trying to find decent sneakers that would last at least 3 years, preferably more, but that are not genocidal brands. It would be awesome if they didn't support slave labor and animal cruelty as well.

Internet doesn't provide help. https://huffsports.com/which-sports-brands-support-palestine/ Adidas? Nike? Puma?! Aren't those brands which actually support State of occupated Palestine called Israel?

Edit: Checked out some ethical sustainable brands in EU. Expensive, so I'll see if I want to spend that amount of money on sneakers, but, having Miret/Earthbound ones I bought on a really good discount, seems that's a good long-term sustainable eco ethical investment.

Emails: permanent written record I can refer to later

Can reply in my own time

Low labour

Low resource use

Phone call: Times/dates mentioned will be forgotten often

Active demand of time

I don't pick up because that phone number looks weird but also my phone's vibrate function is weak

High labour

High data cost per information

My shrink's office seems to want to keep billing information and past/present appointments secret. (This also seems to be worse in local industry, everything has to be a meeting instead of a two line email)

I hardly use the site and I just tried making an account to ask a question on a hobby subReddit.

The site is plagued by errors, every five seconds "We had a server error"

Any time I tried to post "You post was automatically removed" no explanation. And this isn't a "you posted something against the rules" kind of thing because the posts I was trying to make were the same as the one other people were making on the sub. Half the time even when I tried to comment on a post the "server encounted an error".

Not to mention the site blocks you if you try to use a VPN.

Is it because I'm using mobile Firefox? Who cares? If Lemmy can function fine on a mobile browser, Reddit, one of the most famous and popular social media platforms on the internet can.

So I deleted my account. Why bother having a Reddit account if you can't even use it? I know complaining about Reddit is cringe and overdone, but damn I had no idea how far the site had fallen.

I swear these popular sites are trying to destroy themselves. There is no logical reason they should be this broken. It's almost like these corporations are purposely trying to break the internet.

There's something special about "Patriot Day." It was so hastily scrapped together, overmined, and cynically exploited that I don't think even most chuds give a flying fuck about it all that much.

There may be attempts, again, to try to stoke that "9/11 spirit" that Glen Beck cried crocodile tears about. Any guesses to what might try, or if will vaguely remember to bring it up while talking about the Hannibal Lector treats?

I mean, I'm already looking into it on the internet and am asking my family who worked (and work) as professional drivers on how the job looks. However the family part is not very useful as all I get is either "Shit's hard, you won't last a day." or other condescending bullshit. I know shit's hard for fucks sake, good thing is for some fucking reason I like long distance driving. And dealing with assholes and idiots at the job? Yeah fucker, like I won't have to anywhere else, especially in IT.

But to add context, my father tried to work as one in Germany. He doesn't know German. Supposedly it was extremely difficult and cruel, couldn't do it, so he quit very quickly. Now, I don't think I'm built different, but I do think the actual company he was working for was the main culprit for the shit working conditions. Not to mention the language barrier.

I do plan and want to finish my Engineer's degree (undergrad), however for fucks sake I don't want to slave away on Github on shit I don't care for nor have an interest in to pad out my CV. And still, I'll be lucky to find anything that pays even OK, or will hire me in the first place, after getting my degree.

That's why I consider trucking in the Ireland and maybe UK, cause supposedly even entry level drivers get on average £30,000. Long distance £40,000. That's lods of fockin emone for me.

The median pay in Poland is 6550zł before taxes. That's something like £1294 a month. After taxes? 4800zł, that's something like £948 a month.

Now for the more realistic pay I'll get. Before taxes, minimum wage is 4242zł. 3261,53zł after taxes a month.

only 645 fucking pounds a month

Yeah mate, I'd like to own my own fucking home please. And with even £30,000 a year I'm gonna get there in like 4 or 5 years. No loans, no credit, nothin.

🎶 Sing a song of six pence, a pocket full of dosh Dibble dibble, dibble dibble, bosh bosh bosh 🎶

Thing is, the thing kinda sounds better than it really might be, despite me constantly looking into the reality of this difficult work. I don't know, the ££££emone££££ is really enticing for me to seriously consider it... and apparently there's a pretty big driver shortage on that island and it's wretched neighbor...

i cant help it. i really like how he looks.

My uncle asked me for a primer on socialism. I was thinking maybe Socialism Made Easy or Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Anything that might be better?

For context my whole family are through and through vote blue liberals. It's sad to say but most of them didn't even like/vote for Bernie during the primary cycles. They aren't really hardcore anticommunists though and have always been good on unions and labor generally, moreso the problem is really anti-Trump/pro-Dem brainworms. Maybe there's something more modern to share that I don't know of.

Is there even a difference? Cat i found for size comparison👍

What are the methods you've found to make the most amount of money with the least effort? In Germany it seems that draining the government of funding is a great way to get rich. More specifically, getting paid to present shitty video game prototypes. This one managed to gather up 176.776€:

Any other ideas? My dream job is to one day become a perma-NEET. But first I gotta find a way.

Especially in the modern context in the year of our lord 2024. Is it relevant? What do I need to know about it ?

EDIT : Thanks everyone for this really informative thread.

Assuming that its accomplishments include moving manufacturing back into the US and securing the border, what good could come of a populist movement? The interests of the American labor aristocracy would just be consolidated with Imperialism to an even greater extent, and any conflict against China would see no resistance from organized labor because of the incestuous relation of the MIC and organized labor. Any anti-war movement would have no power at all, there would be no positive argument for stopping the conflict when it keeps everyone employed as contrast to the current state of unemployment and precarious work.

Potential benefits include the cessation of the export of capital, less capacity for the US to project power across the world, and less state repression of anti-imperialist movements. But I can't help but think that if the US pulled its production out of Asia, South America, Africa, and the Pacific, it would redo Gladio/Bloodstone to prop up fascists to hold down anti-imperialist movements, or create a dozen Israels to keep a way to quickly kill nascent revolutions. Am I wrong?

I'll give mine to get the ball rolling.

There was a user that, before getting banned, declared that every single living human being alive on Earth right now should not exist because no one had the benefit of a pre-conception device on hand to somehow determine each individual's consent to exist before they started to exist.

I don't know if that take would make David Benatar blush, make David Benatar cackle with glee, or if that was posted by David Benatar himself.

How did it go? What did you learn?

I have a good friend who is generally good politically, not one of us but not bad. A socdem who is aware enough to know NATO is bad and Palestine deserves justice etc.

They’re very strong on feminism, advanced. More than me by far and I value their pov on feminism. A lot.

But they have Islamophobe brainworms. Mostly surrounding sexual violence in Europe by Muslims. They have a suite of rage bait statistics or anecdotes of sexual violence by Muslim men in Europe.

“See this isolated and context-free statistic which shows really the problem is Islam and the cultural values of these immigrants.”

The discussion for them becomes rooted in feminism.

“Why should women pay the price for all the sexual violence Muslim men bring with them? Honor killings are 100% Muslim!”

“X% of rapes are by muslims when they are only Y% of the population.”

“Why are all the immigrants men? We should ban the male refugees from these places, but as a good pro-refugee progressive we should allow the women and children in because they aren’t a problem.”

It’s tempting to try and fight this on data but I think that would kind of be conceding the deeper clash of civilizations argument in some way?

It’s also tempting to fight this on the grounds of material circumstances and point out that gender equality largely follows economic development but then that’s really just entirely conceding to the world view that Islamic immigration is an affliction upon European women for several generations until they assimilate.

I think a core problem here is that I am completely disconnected and unaware of what feminism looks like in the Muslim worlds and so I can’t speak to or challenge the underlying Islamophobia.

Of course there are issues with patriarchy in the Islamic world and when my friend points to the veil in Iran being enforced by the religious police and it’s impossible for me to deny that and I completely agree with them (while disagreeing with them insofar as I totally accept many Muslim women choose to wear it but then it becomes a complex go-nowhere discussion about peer pressure and bikinis) but then there’s this bridge from that true fact to the assertion that Islamic men are a threat to European women which is just like woah man wtf.

How do I approach this? Where’s my Muslim-world feminist perspective at? What are some considered debunks or analyses of the use of isolated statistics on sexual violence?

Like the best internet gotcha would be a statistical analysis that simply debunks the sexual violence statistics and that would be helpful but I believe there’s a deeper Islamophobia and sense of western cultural supremacy, clash of civilizations, thesis that they don’t explicitly acknowledge and I sense that feminism is being abused to ennoble that.

And on the flip side, I’m a male. I’m very unlikely to be a victim of sexual violence at this point in my life. I’m not going to be a victim of an honor killing. Do I have privilege I need to check here?

Overall I think the best would be for me to discover and learn feminist theory and female perspectives from Muslim / Arabic / Palestinian / Iranian / Afghan / Pakistani authors, both in the “Muslim world” and from those living in the west.

Maybe it would also be useful to look at how panic about black men raping women was used and is used to justify racial oppression as a consciousness raising exercise?

Considered feminist critiques of Islam?

Considered feminist critiques of Islamophobia in Europe?

Hows every bear doing tonight?

Yes, yes I know we're already kind of there, but I mean without the current infighting and clash between finance vampires and industrial vampires and other gridlock factors.

Fascism burns itself out fast with the constant need to purge and loot until nothing is left, so I know even 20 years of unmitigated fascism is a stretch. Still, what do you think a "they get absolutely everything they want, fire all US government employees and replace them at the low echelon with Billy Bob, the middle echelon with James Holden Bloodfeast III, and their favorite Youtubers at the top echelon" complete and total MAGA victory might look like?

Try to hold it together and stretch your sense of disbelief that the hogs get the feed they've been squealing for, from mere reappropriated resources (the way nazis murdered and looted and redistributed to their favorite failfamilies) or even something surreal like the incel supporters actually getting government issued slaves while destroying all other safety nets entirely, if you dare. After all, Dr. Professor Lobster Esquire PhD MD says that's the price of civilization, bucko.

Let's be generous and assume no outright nuclear war, just so there's something to actually visualize other than a more actually historically accurate version of the Fallouterino treats.