askchapo

Specifically, the prompt will be "help! The commies are making me think, give me excuses to ignore the things they're saying! The commies are saying Insert your comment here!”

This is not a "gotcha! checkmate idiots!" post, I'm genuinely curious what you think about this. This is the forum for asking questions right?

I have very niche interests. I like specifically shaped plushies of a specific franchise called fumos. I like data hoarding so I like being able to buy a 16TB hard drive and just dump whatever the fuck I find on the internet on it. I like commissioning gay furry porn. I can think of many other niche things. A specific brand of cheese I like, a specific brand of shoes that don't hurt my feet, specific kinds of fashion I like to wear, etc etc etc.

I like being able to do these things despite them not really appealing to a huge majority mass of people. And I understand why I can do that in capitalism: because it's a market everyone can sell stuff in and people (theoretically) chose what to buy, instead of it being chose for them. Thus, it's viable and sometimes even optimal to find a niche to appeal to rather than to make something general and for everyone. That's why it's profitable to make fumos.

Under a planned economy, how exactly can this work, though? An overseeing body will care about an overarching goal, and therefore things that are not useful to achieve that goal will be pushed back or completely discarded. Put yourself in the lens of some top-of-the-hierarchy bureaucrat: why bother making something like fumos? It's a luxury no one truly needs. It's a waste of resources that produces no tangible benefit. Why bother with 16tb hard drives for personal computers? Most people don't need more than 1tb or 2tb. Better to just give those to state companies that need them for servers and such. Giving them to data hoarders is again, a waste of resources that produces no tangible benefit. You can just save (what you deem) important things in a central archive.

I know I am talking purely about luxuries, but these things can be severe too. Why bother finding treatments for illneses that affect only very small percentages of the population? Why bother with clothes that can fit specific body shapes that are not found in the vast majority of people without hurting them? Why make game controllers shaped for the minute proportion of people that don't have five fingers?

Actually why make games in the first place, even? Wouldn't it be counter productive? That shit can lead to addiction and workers slacking off, meaning less productivity. From the point of view of The Administration it's only a waste of time. It furthers the goal more if there's no games. Why fund them?

I understand this kind of thing sort of happened in the USSR, there being very few brands of things to pick from, all the economy being spent on the army instead of things that made people happy, etc. I'm no historian so I'm not going to dwell on it specifically too much though.

I don't want to live in a world where everything is only made if it fits The One General Purpose. I guess the reply to this would be "fine, some things can be independent", but what is allowed to be independent and what isn't? How is that decided? How can we be sure it's enough?

For the record, I don't think niche things can only exist with a profit incentive. But I do think they can't exist without an incentive at all. If the body that controls all the funding and resources has no incentive, even if people out of the kindness and passion in their hearts want to do these things, if the government says "no, that's useless", there's nothing they can do.

I also don't think the solution to this can be "well just make sure The Administrators do allow these things", systematically they have an incentive to never do it, and a system that depends on a dice roll for nice people over and over and over is not a system I'd ever trust

Anyway thanks for reading. I mean no ill harm this is an actual question. o/

[pictured: a fumo]

I’ve had two days in a row where I got to nerd out over stuff with people. Let’s get some of that going for everyone else.

Normal distribution, degrees of freedom, etc etc my brain is blue screening. How am I supposed to remember all this shit? HELP.

I'm bombarded with like 12 new complex terms in each lecture that I'm supposed to just fully understand. Gdhsjfbe fuck my ADHD brain.

I want to be more mindful about the light I cast myself in. I leave myself little room to grow and it'd be beneficial to adventure my way to better self perception.

I have self esteem issues that have me avoid testing how I'll react to different scenarios. Whatever "wrong" means, I often assume I'll react "wrongly." I constantly shut down chances for myself to experience more things in life. Like when people give ideas for things I can do, I almost always reject them because I assume I'm incapable of doing those ideas.

Hi, chapos. I posted this in the check-in thread and was recommended to make a post about it so here it is:

In a queer space recently, I met a lesbian lady who lives in Pakistan and works for the Department of School Education. Direct quotes:

"I work with the School Education Department, which approaches the children who live in remote areas on those living in the triol areas, for schooling, we make our small schools in it, which means for some time in one area, then for some time in another area, these areas tribals are against the education of girls, then in these areas. It works"

For like two seconds I thought this was cool, but she started talking about how "the tribals" in Punjab are all "dangerous" and "keep their girls from going to school", and how the Department delivers USAID textbooks, uniforms, so on. Smelt really bad to me, particularly the use of the noun "tribals" and automatic connection of them to misogyny and violence:

Direct Quote 2: "There are many tribal areas in Pakistan, there are hilly areas where there is a tribal who is the chief, they are ruled or there are organizations, then they themselves hold the community there, people are not allowed to send girls out of the house or send them to school, especially when the girl is above 10 years of age. So sheis not allowed to go out of the house, it is considered worse to go to school."

Direct quote 3: "Yes, the department also supports a little bit and gives its own people such as Wellingly who want to go and in addition to this, USAID also helps in it, free books free uniforms things, etc."

I heavily suspect that this is an imperialist thing. Pakistan has been somewhat in the USA's pocket for a while from what I can tell, and USAID funded/written? textbooks were also what the Taliban used in Afghanistan for radicalisation, based on what I could dig up. I also discovered that there's been debate about the content of textbooks which I suspect is related. Westoid search results make it hard to draw connections :)

Certainly there is criticism of USAID regarding corruption and such, and Pakistan does not seem to treat its tribespeople very well. They've also sent their military into the FATA region with the excuse of "antiterrorism operations", which sounds great.

Worthy to note, I just asked her about what she does and how it gets done, I did not unhinge my jaw and spew forth a DOG OF THE USAMERICAN EMPIRE rant, because you know what they say about No Investigation. It was kind of surreal to be trying to sniff out potential western propaganda in realtime while talking with this queer woman from Pakistan though. This whole thing, this lesbian woman bitching and griping ahout THOSE TRIBALS who DONT WANT THEIR GIRLS EDUMACATED whilst working for a US-funded state education department fucking reeks of pinkwashing.

Opinions from anyone educated or knowledgeable on this subject are greatly appreciated, especially if we have any comrades from Pakistan

Inspired by recent discussions, I think Hexbear has a lot of good information about socialism but I wonder if the relentless defense of AES on Hexbear means shooting ourselves in the foot, since many potential leftists have been thoroughly primed to react negatively to AES states?

We’re not getting our messages out when progressive instances have already pre-emptively blocked us and calling us “tankies”.

People are being turned away without even taking the opportunity to read some of the stuff here, because they already have a pre-conceived notion about Hexbear being filled with “crazy tankies who defend totalitarianism”.

I know there have been a lot of propaganda and fabrication being perpetuated about socialist countries, and it feels “right” to defend them against these false accusations, but I wonder if this is doing more harm than good for the present day nascent socialist movement, at least in the Western countries?

We can remain on the current course and feel indignant about the tankie accusations, but will forever remain as a niche “tankie” community.

Or, we can open ourselves up, by toning down the admiration for the socialist states so we are not being treated as hostile by the other instances, and thus opening up the opportunities to have productive interactions with users (and potential leftists) from other instances?

(I do have my own position, you probably know which one it is, but I’m willing to hear from others and reevaluate my own opinions if needed).

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who responded. All points are well taken. Thank you.

I watched most of the South African case. You only need to watch the 10min-30min window where they just quote all their Israeli leaders making explicit calls for genocide.

Is there a point in the Israeli case where they address this? I'd rather not listen to the entire 2.5 hours to confirm it doesnt exist.

Edit: using this upload for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxGJfdBi3SM

South Africa's case as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2vQ7suQWGg

After that the matter has to go to the UN SC (where it will be vetoed) but then it could go to the General Assembly. That’s the pathway to getting something done, right?

All assuming the verdict is again Israel, of course.

Heya! That time again! For the new folks, this thread is a space to tell us about something fun and cool you have going on, vent about something, or find an ear that you may need. Hope you've been well!

Remember, you are loved

For my own part, while my attention span continues to get worse and worse, im still powering through Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and trying to keep warm. Pretty nasty out where I'm at, and won't get better for another week or so. No leads on the job hunt, but I did start looking into nonprofit stuff and got a few apps out, so thats kind of exciting in and of itself. Partner stayed with me for a few days last week, and am arranging a date with someone I've been seeing around in local leftist/queer/gaming circles. And by date I mean "come watch movies with the pup and I cause we're poor." Or maybe we'll shoot some free pool at a spot by me, who knows.

Lastly - ayyyyy two months without alcohol! I seemed to have swapped it out with a caffeine addiction though, but oh well. More coffee, anyone?

Hope you're doing well, friends!

Is it configured to ignore its own posts? Would this immediately crash the site as it replies to itself indefinitely? Seems like it could be possible to inject a youtube or reddit link inside a reddit link.

To all full-grown hexbears, NO DUNKING IN MY THREAD...ONLY TEACH, criminal scum who violate my Soviet will be banned three days and called a doo doo head...you have been warned

Trump walks into the Hotel Fort Des Moines in Iowa. - YouTube

CNN...

“We’ve got a lot of meetings tonight, we’re doing well, we’ve got a lot of tremendous support. But it’s nasty out there," Trump said as he paused briefly in the lobby at the Hotel Fort Des Moines.

People who like chewing on toast left under the grill for three hours? People who chew on bark?

"Oh just let people enjoy things" NO, NO I WONT

As someone who’s been tabling for an org I’m in I find it hard to not get discouraged by apathetic libs and chuds who I talk to. Just today I had some old guy to tell me to move to Russia or Cuba and call me a communist piece of shit. It’s probably due to already having anxiety and other issues, but stuff like that can get demoralizing. So how to y’all push through that?

1. How "planned" was the economy? What are some examples that demonstrate its "plannedness" compared to current states like China?

2. Why did it fail?

3. How good was the standard of living?

I don't watch HBO or whatever it's hosted on and seems to hate it, and I'm barely online enough to understand half of what they spew into the air

Someone made a photo of Justin Trudeau in blackface superimposed over the tanks at Tiananmen Square. Given his position on the ICJ case, I need this urgently for twitter purposes, and I imagine someone on here has it. I swear I do but can’t find it in my photos

Love u

I keep seeing all these game ads and noticing I don't know them, but they're often about fake games pretending they'ren't fake games or obvious "collectable pay-to-win" games but the streamer is screaming about random stuff while post-production effects are happening.

And to an extension "we; ours"

/s

They don't look like hog to me

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3299031

For example, I would like whether countries like China, India are self-sufficient when it comes foods. For example, if some country produces the wheat it if not, how much is imported and other stuff like that.

Mine is purple. Specifically lavender or lilac, depending on how I'm feeling at the time.