askchapo

since it's a thing my partner and i don't trust random youtube channels not to be just some "anti-woke" shit

For those of you that have seen the Val Kilmer/Marlon Brando movie The Island of Dr. Moreau, you may remember the part near the end where the question is asked "you are a god, and he is a god, and he is also a god, but which of you is god... number... one?" and it caused a collapse of what little cohesion the god-killing group had.

I predict something similar on Monday because I highly doubt two notoriously Main Character brained billionaires will, or even can, share the spotlight without feeling threatened by their counterpart.

So, I'm currently dating someone, and it's my first time dating. I was a kissless virgin before this but I’m not kissless anymore ^^. Anyway, we get along really well, sharing a lot of interests and similar views. They're a "newer" lefty, but they have a good head on their shoulders and are open to learning. We’re really excited about each other. We've talked a lot over voice chat, had three dates so far, and exchange a bit of daily texting. At this point, I'm pretty sure we're going to become a couple, maybe even for a longer time.

Today is our 4th date, but I do not intend to tell them I love them because I'm not really sure how love feels. I definitely feel attraction, and it seems very mutual. I guess my question is: When do I tell someone I love them, and how do I know when I truly love them?

Im asking because this is literally my 1st time dating and I have never been involved in anything romantic.

I keep hearing from people in my life that spirituality is an essential part of living a meaningful existence. I hear the phrase "let go and let God" and "everything happens for a reason" used a lot as advice and comfort. However, I'm an atheist and a materialist. I don't know how I could even be spiritual with those beliefs. At the same time, my life is not fulfilling despite the fact that I am not struggling financially. Moreover, I feel paralyzed when I try to get off my privileged ass and do even the bare minimum for socialist organizing because I realize that it goes directly against my labor aristocratic class interests. I feel like knowing that sticking my neck out and contributing to the real movement to change the present state of things is the morally correct thing to do isn't enough to drive me.

In short, what is spirituality? Is it compatible with materialism? If so, how? And if spirituality is the wrong tree to bark up, how can I drive myself to do what is to be done?

Let's be real, people. I'm the best politician this countries got. I raised the GDP when I was president and I wept the debt out. It's true! But the crooked democrats are trying to take your jobs away! The jobs I worked so hard to give you! What do I have to do to get you to like me?

Kind of what the title says—I want to learn more about the Byzantine Empire. It doesn't need to be an academic book in fact, I would prefer something fun to read and not too dry. I'm mostly interested in the later years, around 800-1400. If anyone has a recommendation, hit me up! I´d settle for historical fiction as well.

I grew up with culture and assumed everyone else had culture. Then I came across a white person who fetishized black and Asian people.

She grew up in America completely without contact with their ancestral tree for generations. I'd sit down, and they'd tell me their DNA is part Asian around 20x before I got up from my seat. She and her entire family looked completely white. That's how far back she was digging.

She's not black by any stretch, but she claimed she couldn't understand white slang because she only speaks black slang... even though she grew up with my also white boyfriend in the same white suburb neighborhood. My boyfriend simply talks like a white person.

She wore cultures as costumes. Like not growing up wearing durags then wearing one at 25 and dressing up in gang colors and lying about being in a gang, growing up in a ultra-rich suburban neighborhood and explaining to my boyfriend what is like to grow up in the hood(you grew up in the same ultra rich suburb shut up!), Buddhist beads(in her chosen gang color) with long "Buddhist nails" when they were cruel and dehumanizing at every chance, and nothing else about them was Buddhist. She is also immunocompromised, but started the pandemic insisting she wear a paisley bandana(also in the gang color) instead of medical masks I gave her a full pack of.

She claims it's distasteful to talk about feeling animosity towards the 1%, but she loves watching videos of black gangs getting shot.

They were constantly trying to look like "an exotic white person." They never realized they are just white and can only be shown around other people's cultures as a guest, but can never become "one of them." Always just as an outsider.

They taught me part of what whiteness was. Because of them I know about people who are white and nothing else.

My body wants to upgrade my shitposting ability, but technology holds me back 🫠

Using Jerboa, which is great, but emotes are my white whale

Because it's

It makes me dare to dream.

I like the smell of dragons blood incense but I don't want to buy it if it's from an endangered species.

In before someone makes a joke about it being from real mythical dragons

how many of yall are fans?

What animal makes you hehehe or hihi every time you look at it. Goofy looking or acting either or. No blobfish out of water photo if you suggest that I'll ppb you.

Went to a small regional socialist political conference recently and there was a lot of discussion about this. It has really advanced my worldview, especially having recently read Settlers.

The doctrinaire Marxist analysis of society is that there is a proletariat working class, and there is a capitalist class. The capitalists exploit the proles, and the proles are revolutionary. We are all familiar with this.

However, communists in every country must adapt this analysis to their own actual existing society. This requires answering three questions:

1. The history of this region is characterized by ________
2. The contradictions of the current moment are primarily ________
3. The revolutionary class is _________

In Russia the revolutionary class was the industrial proletariat, and in China the revolutionary class were the peasants. We can't pretend the US has any similarity to Tsarist Russia. So what are the answers to these questions in our context? I'll give my own thoughts as a comment.

I keep hearing it mentioned and the only stuff I can really find out about it are from questionable mainstream US sources, any insight as to whats going on there would be appreciated, thanks.

Like, how do the Picards get to keep their bigass vineyard? Do they supply the public with free terrible wine in exchange for this massive piece of land? Can anyone walk around there? Could they pick some grapes for themselves? Who is tending this vineyard, surely not just his weird brother, and especially so, who's tending it after they die in generations? How did Sisko'a dad get the restaurant property? Sure there's technically limitless space cause you can go live on some colony, but those always seem to be weird semi agrarian weirdos or a single town with a staircase that leads no where in the center. I demand to know how the federation does real estate!

I know little about the actual organization of this movement but I recently learned their president fled and they are establishing an interim government. I heard some rhetoric about destroying the fascist organization of current bangladesh. Is this is a socialist movement or a liberal one?

Not to humblebrag but I’m not online enough to know the details of the likely struggle sessions that have already occurred relating to this (Hexbear or elsewhere)

I’m reading Racial Formation in the United States, and it makes frequent use of latin@. But to me it just seems really awkward/forced.

Just use latine? Or, if one insists on using a combo letter, maybe at least something like the Swedish å? Or instead of trying to change the language, just divorce any correlation between human gender and word gender by selecting either latino or latina to refer to all people.

I only have a basic American level ability to speak Spanish so if there are Spanish speakers here with better insight, lemme hear the roasts

What are the sites that remove trackers from YouTube videos?

Forgot them and want to post a funny video.

Thanks

Are you a leftist who is sick of working long hours just so that your boss can buy a second house?

Do you struggle finding employment because you don't have a degree (classist bullshit), or have a degree in a field you didn't end up liking?

Do you have any personal experience with homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, or just struggling to fit in with capitalist society? This is like, the one job where that helps a lot.

Do you have an understanding of the structural issues that cause people to become unemployed or homeless (it's capitalism. capitalism is the answer)? Live in a medium-to-large city where social services exist in parallel with the for-profit job market?

Why not try a new career working in Homeless Services?

I've been a shelter worker for most of the last decade, and lemme tell you, it's pretty great. I've done everything from working on-call night shifts, to managing entire shelters hosting 100+ people. I didn't go to school for this, and I had no social work experience prior. I was just some trans girl in her 20s with a little bit of lived experience (living in my car) who answered a craigslist ad, but I stuck with the work cause it's like, hella rewarding and stuff.

Most of the job is just maintaining a safe environment for the guests - cleaning the facility, preparing meals if your shelter does its own food, signing people up for services (showers, laundry, beds, depending on program), with a little bit of case management on the side - and they'll teach you that part. Depending on the shelter, you might be busy buzzing around chatting with people (like 90% just being friendly, not even "work talk"), or you might just be chilling, ready to pop up if anything exciting happens. If you work night shift, you might even get to spend the night on your phone while everyone is asleep (depends heavily on the shelter).

There are some substantial downsides, not gonna sugar coat it.

• It can be stressful dealing with people going through what is likely the most difficult period of their life. They aren't normally assholes, life is making them that way.

• Sometimes said stressed-out people will have emotional outbursts, that can be very disruptive and sometimes scary or even dangerous. You learn a lot about deescalating angry people (which is actually a really good skill for a leftist to have, if you do any protesting!).

• Sometimes people fucking die, and you'll be the first responder. You will get good at using narcan and doing CPR. I have a graveyard in my head and have known so many people who died either in shelter, or on the streets some time after I met them through work. I've had people die while I was trying to save them. Sometimes you do EMT stuff. It does weigh on you a bit.

But the rewards are so much more!

• When you tell people what you do, they'll think very highly of you. Our stereotypes are sick as hell and people will talk about how caring and wonderful you are. Try it out on dating apps!

• It's peaceful at work today so I spent all day posting. I expect tomorrow to also be mostly chill, so I will be posting more.

• I'm in good with a lot of houseless people in my city, and this has been helpful more than once. It's cool having people.

• Actually doesn't pay too bad. I make about 50k in a large coastal city, enough to pay rent and have a modest living. With my shelter worker bf making around the same, we get by alright in this expensive city.

Any other shelter workers here? Anyone in homeless services in general? What got you into this work?

Also, does anyone have any questions about what the job is like or how to get into it?

Staying with my mom for a couple months before I do this study abroad thing. She is obsessed with George Soros, but not other billionaires. Keeps saying things that are halfway antisemitic tropes, but let's be real. She's super religious and thinks some things about jews she's afraid to say.

Today was the classic, "paid protestors" where she kept going on and on. Showed me a fake job listing and a christian blog post as proof. I said that's not proof, so agree to disagree right?

How would y'all handle this? Do I just give up on refuting this crap? I have a lot of jewish friends, and this shit really drives my anger/anxiety through the roof, so I do not think I can just have a rational convo. But I also don't wanna sit next to racist crap being spewed and say nothing.

I could find another living situation, but it's like an hour away from where all my friends/other fam live and I have already asked these people for a ton of favors.