Disclaimer: I'm not a troll, I used to be very (too) active on GZD here and on reddit. Feel free to search through my history here or on reddit over 1 month ago. There's also this using Pushshift. Regarding my name "Pinkeston" because the trueanon people kept pointing that out. It's a play on words from the 1996 Weezer album "Pinkerton" (which I used to love but can't listen to anymore because it's incelly) but it's "pinkest" so it's more "pink" than "pinker". I never knew of the "American private security guard and detective agency" when I chose this username 4 years ago
About 3-4 weeks ago I double steeped about 6g of shrooms to make a ridiculously strong tea, and while there's so much about that trip that I could write about, I just want to talk about the title. I wanted to post this earlier but waited this long because there's always an afterglow where you're still affected by the drugs but that completely went away after only 2 days for me and I still feel the same or possibly even stronger as I did immediately after the trip
During the trip, I thought about the Russia Ukraine war since that's kind of always on my mind and I imagined all the suffering that was occurring on the land. For a very slight bit I was dropped in the middle of the war field on the ground and experienced all the destruction and death around me and I cried and wept for all the victims that are experiencing Hell RIGHT NOW
I realized that resisting and escalating tensions can only lead to more harm and suffering. The fighting will never end. The total amount of deaths and pain caused worldwide in 100 years of resistance will be mountains higher than no resistance at all
Violence only breeds more violence. No matter what the politics are (NATO expansion, Azov massacres in Donbas, etc.), you can't solve those issues with just more war
The only way to create a peaceful just world is to change it through companionship and love. Forcefully submitting others to your will only creates more suffering and oppression that will result in never ending cycles
Revolutionaries who have overthrown kings and dictators, workers that have forced their company's hand by going on strikes, and even people who have gone against their employer/state by leaking secrets like Snowden, Manning, and Assange
I can respect their well-meaning intentions but all of these only contribute or create new problems that are the exact same ones they were trying to solve
I'm asking all of you to please consider and realize all the harm you'd be doing by even just unionizing at work. It's a slippery slope to mass destruction and suffering. No more resisting for the sake of EVERYBODY
Make love not war
I'm curious on how you'd implement solutions
Some universities are more prestigious. Okay, but how do you just stop the reputation of a school from rising above others? If a school produces more talent and research output and the scientific community and public picks up on that, how do you stop their reputation from getting better?
On LGBTQ rights: Have you read about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs or something similar? Basic needs are met first, then safety, then societal and personal needs. Countries and societies operate on the same level. Some of the West is able to progress more on some things like LGBTQ rights because their material conditions are already extremely high. Cuba used to be extremely homophobic but they were able to focus on correcting that once the island's living standards stabilized. I'm sure you know how many poor people there are in China. The government is focused on material conditions and economic growth/stability first. You can't solve everything at once. Time and resources are not unlimited. You can criticize the lack of LGBTQ progress if China becomes a developed country for years and still doesn't improve. It's the same reason why communists don't blame other imperialized countries for being anti LGBTQ. If your country falls to imperialism who cares if your country is a gay paradise, everybody is fucked, including the LGBTQ people. Do you not support Palestine, Afghanistan, etc. Because they are extremely anti LGBTQ?
On 996: It blows but socialist countries have always worked very hard (Soviets regularly worked ~60 hours at first) to catch up to the imperialists. Also as somebody who works in an industry in the West that also see long hours, it's not as simple as just waving a hand to stop it. If there's a project that needs to be delivered by a deadline because of poor planning, occasionally 40+ hours is necessary. If somebody wants to get promoted quickly and voluntarily works long hours, you can't stop them unless your manager fires them. Oh but then since this one person works longer hours, other team members don't want to look bad or fall behind so they also start working longer hours to keep up. How do you stop this behavior? The truth is Chinese people are culturally extremely hard working. Of course there are many managers that force long hours but I know many Chinese managers do it in a way that's "legal". They encourage harder workers by promoting them. They discourage healthy work hours by blocking their career growth by giving them low impact and low visibility projects
How do you just magically stop this? It's extremely difficult to just create massive societal changes overnight. It takes decades to do