Welcome again to everybody. Make yourselves at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
☭ Matrix homeserver and space
☭ Theory discussion group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml
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There is so much mindless doomerism going on lately. People think Trump is going to end the world for no reason any day now.
I just learned that the Thailand government offers loans and sponsorships for Thai people to set up restaurants in other countries. Fucking weird man.
Hmm, must be why my city has so many Thai restaurants. But they’re good, so I’m not complaining
Thai restaurants are popular enough in the United States that this does not surprise me.
From Brazil in the heart of Rio de Janeiro
The place is real in case someone thinks I used AI -> https://www.instagram.com/p/DfDToROhggl/
Do you like numbered paragraphs?
I feel like they are very useful for a reader, but not so much when the author uses them to avoid repetition like “blah blah see paragraph 19.3 for more info” instead of “blah blah blah [rephrasing of idea in another paragraph] (see paragraph 19.3)”
There’s probably some positive value in using actual language and connectors instead of raw pointers to other paragraphs.
In XHS(rednote), there has been a trend of people doing photoshoots like this. It is very nice. Wanted to share this with you all.
She has an awesome shirt
hola a todos
¿como estáis?
wena wena bien piola dentro de lo posible, ayer me cagaba de risa con el tremendo fiasco del presi de paraguay, especialmente pq el aweoano de presidente de mi pais le re tiraba flores y lo trataba de modelo a seguir 😭😭😭😭
The image is called, Strengthen attack dynamics, resolutely wipe out pornography, gambling and drugs It’s a propaganda poster published in the People’s Republic of China in 1997 and is from a series of propaganda called Talk about civilization and create a new style propaganda posters.
I was just searching through Chineseposter.net and came across this and thought it was interesting. For me, I feel that this poster, as well as the others in the series serve as a primer to think about the ways societies with differing histories, economic modes of production, and global relations may view crime, social issues, or even what is considered impolite in public spaces (see the no spitting poster in the series). I think it’s cool to look through the site and see how the art style of posters changed over time. This series is distinct from the more modern posters and of course are different from those made in the cultural revolution, not just in style but content.
On a less serious note, look at that mf with a submachine gun leaping at me through the air cuz im jerking it to some porn. Let a girl do her thing geez
Yeah, I read theory.
/j
Hi, I’m new here, and to introduce myself and contribute to the further development of the theory, I’m going to list the last two books I’ve read recently.
Truth and Knowledge - The Theory of Knowledge in Dialectical Materialism in the People’s Republic of China - Tchang En-tsé [Zhang Enci] (1976)
The book is written in Spanish, but it is one of those books that anyone interested in Marxism-Leninism and total liberation from capitalism should read. There are very few books that, even after you’ve grasped the essence of dialectical materialism, leave you speechless and allow you to delve even deeper into knowledge and objective truth. This book helped me fully understand the dialectical materialist theory of reflection, which, in my opinion, is the main cause of the mistakes made in various organizations around the world. How can we objectively grasp the objective reality of different countries? Through the central organ (objective truth) controlled by the party. In my opinion, this book helps us understand this issue better in philosophical terms.
https://archive.org/details/verdadyconocimento/mode/2up
Frederick Engels: Life and Work - Editorial Progreso, Moscow, (1987) spanish
This book helped me see Engels not as the bourgeois version that has survived to this day, the one who was merely an appendage to Marx, helping him finance his works, etc., but as a revolutionary with his own individuality who betrayed his class in the service of humanity’s complete emancipation. I learned that he spoke and wrote many languages, that he was an active participant in the 1848 revolution, fighting on the front lines and later fleeing the counterrevolution. There are many portraits, personal belongings, and drawings of him here that I had never seen before, and that surprised me greatly as well and the part of the book that recounts the struggle of the Paris Commune made me so sad that I almost shed tears over this quote from Marx, which seems particularly urgent to me in the times we live in:
“THE PRINCIPLES OF THE COMMUNE ARE ETERNAL AND CANNOT BE DESTROYED; THEY WILL REEMERGE TIME AND TIME AGAIN UNTIL THE WORKING CLASS ACHIEVES ITS EMANCIPATION.” C. MARX
https://archive.org/details/engels.-vida-y-actividad_202610/mode/2up
Lots of people really sleep on Engels. Its too bad Engelisim sounds like a medical condition.
How about “Engels Thought”? Like “Mao Zedong Thought” is an interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, Engels Thought is an interpretation of Marxism.
Engels was a published socialist theorist before he met Marx. In fact Engels work “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy” is what pushed Marx over the tipping point from being a radlib democrat to becoming a socialist. It sent Marx down the rabbit hole of materialist economics and class analysis.
This is what I mean by people sleeping on the awesomeness of Engels.
In that case, I was sleeping on Engels then. I didn’t know this.
It’s kind of daunting and exciting to know I still have so much to learn and read lol.
I often think back about this book by William Blum, the one aptly titled Killing Hope. The book itself is, of course, excellent but it’s the title that captures my mind again and again. The US is effectively killing not just people but the very notion of hope.
Is Isaac Asimov’s Psychohistory similar to Historical Materialism?
I heard an anecdote that said he create historical materialism from first principles and shrugged. I don’t remember where I heard it.
The overall idea seems pretty similar although he claimed he wasn’t inspired by dia.mat. I guess in fairness historical materialism probably osmosed into culture quite a bit by then. In terms of actual method it is of course vastly different.
That’s interesting. I guess the method of diamat would eventually exist even without Marx if his inspiration wasn’t just cultural osmosis.
And the process of dialectical and historical materialism will inevitably lead to the understading that revolutionary socialist revolution is the inevitable end of capitalism. This is why Marxism is called Scientific Socialism.
Apparently the Green Party won a seat in the Hawaii senate
Good for them! Anything that takes seats away from the duopoly is good.
How often do you encounter the term USian irl? I feel like I mostly still only encounter the term American, but here and there I still see the term USian in the wild, so I feel the usage is growing.
not once
people just call them yankees, yanks, or americans
How do you pronounce it? is it like you-es-ian or is it like you-shan?
Literally never. But I live in America, so that’s probably par the course.
As an aside if we have to ditch “America”/“American” (which I’m fine with) can we use Yankee instead of USian/Statesian?
The invention of the latter is redundant when the former is older than the country itself. They also just sound awful in English; I’d much rather be called a Yank(ee).
BREAKING NEWS:
LeBron James reportedly forgot to learn Dialectical Materialism before reading The Capital
This is why Kobe is my goat smh
Ah, Chairman Bryant
