alsaaas

alsaaas , 1 day ago

goals to aspire to

- a 183cm + boot sole trans fem (me)

alsaaas , 2 days ago

If I can't watch it without ads (be it adblocker or otherwise), I'm not watching it

I won't waste my time with senseless clips trying to psychologically manipulate me into buying things I don't need

alsaaas , 3 days ago

“You know what would be really interesting to do? Don’t denounce me as a Stalinist but, for example – it’s my old temptation – to rewrote Star Wars… presenting Palpatine and Darth Vader as good progressive egalitarian centralist fighting reactionary feudalist, all the Jedi bullshit. It would tell a completely different story, from the others point.
What do they [Jedi] stand for? All that, ‘Republic’, what strange of Republic is when you have a Princess Leila, knights, kings and so on? No, Palpatine the Emperor and Darth Vader, they are - my god - progressive Bonapartist revolutionaries trying to get rid of the old world.”

From: Žižek on Reshooting Star Wars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_DroaGggbc

But tbh I think that if we take the original trilogy, the Rebels are cleary fighting a reactionary imperialist power, ie. an analogy to the Vietnam war

alsaaas , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

I'm rly happy when ppl switch to a GNU/Linux OS, tho I would never recommend Ubuntu to anyone (anymore), since Linux Mint has a much saner no bs team that is not fucked over by a corporate

Or just plain Debian, which is wonderful as well

alsaaas , 7 days ago

I thought it was quite annoying tbh

alsaaas , 9 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

The USA has a two faced one party system. Two sides of the same coin or "good cop/bad cop" if you will.

Both parties serve the rich, support imperialism and so on. In terms of economics they have the exact same function of serving the 10% over the 90%.

In terms of domestic affairs the good/bad cop dynamic really kicks in. The reps are ultraconservative, while the dems try to mud the waters with their slight progressiveness, in the end only coopting those things as not to endanger capitalism.

The best you will get from the dems is a
"I'll try to not make things worse - for now. Vote for me or my buddy elephant over there will beat you up".
(the not making things worse refers to their social policy, not their economic ones. Those will still get progressively worse for the working majority, even if it might be a bit more indirect. All the dems really are is a silken glove over the iron fist of capital).

And tbh, for everyone outside of the US it doesn't make a difference whether the bombs the policeman of the world drops wherever they please & the bags of money they send to genociders/reactionaries/fascists/terrorists have prideflag & BLM stickers on them, or not...

alsaaas Mod , 11 days ago

agreed, but where meme?

alsaaas , 12 days ago

I have exclusuvely been listening to
"The History of Rome" by Mike Duncan

still not done with it lol

alsaaas , 12 days ago

That's how I was made aware of "The History of Rome". I listened to the last chapters of "Revolutions" and decided to start from the beginning before listening to the rest.

My current "roadmap" of sorts is to finish "The History of Rome", then "The History of Byzantium* (not made by Duncan) and listen to the rest of "Revolutions" afterwards

alsaaas , 12 days ago

I always replace "the economy" with "rich people's yacht money" in such cases

alsaaas , 12 days ago

Capitalism working as intended

alsaaas , 12 days ago (edited 11 days ago)

I wouldn't count on that tbh, especially since it won't solve anything...

We are not in the same boat at all (metaphorically and physically as well for the most part):
The 90% have a little boat at best with most of the Global South being on a raft, with the rich basically being on a Dreadnought but in hysterical size of like cruiseships

alsaaas , 12 days ago

yes, that's exactly me

alsaaas , 15 days ago

I can't tell what song it is... :/ Any clues?

alsaaas , 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago)

I'm glad Fedora comes with the most usable no-bs/out-of-the-way (in my subjective experience) DE by default. Yes I do run it with Tweaks and a few extensions, but otherwise I have no need for extensive customization for customization’s sake (which seems so many ppls problem with GNOME, smth that I couldn't find more irrelevant), since everything about its UI/UX is so intuitive.
I understand if people don't like its opinionated workflow, but it's just right for me personally...

I don't get the proposal either way bc Fedora has always been the spearhead of vanilla GNOME and there is an official KDE spin iirc

alsaaas , 14 days ago (edited 13 days ago)

This is very similar to my experience tho I have skipped most of my ricing/customization phase with Gnome bc I just didn't feel the need to do much about it bar a few extensions

alsaaas , 13 days ago

I plan on switching to Slowroll once it's matured, but I think I'll stay with Gnome :p

alsaaas , 15 days ago

hussy

alsaaas , 15 days ago

I- don't get it

alsaaas , 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago)

ok lol, but no

what did the hussy ever do to you?

alsaaas , 15 days ago

the average brain on Windows...

"wdym a different OS doesn't behave exactly like Winsows? That just means it's bad!"

"It's Linux' fault that my proprietary software/configurator for overpriced hardware gimmicks isn't working and definitely not just the vendor not giving enough of a shit to provide support (or at least help with community drivers) on other platforms as well!!1!"

alsaaas , 15 days ago

well it is the depiction of an imagined humanist (/communist) future. ig there is quite a bit of overlap

alsaaas , 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago)

snaps are a proprietary vendor-locked format, the only redeeming quality is being able to run them in cli (once Flatpak get that too, there is no valid reason for snaps to exist).

I just find it midly infuriating (if that even is a thing, meaning I hate it but it's not that significant for me to distro hop on my work laptop) to have two "universal" package formats on my system with Canonical shoving the objectively worse one (from a free/libre pov) down my throat...

alsaaas , 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago)

...no?

The backend is proprietary and you or other orgs cannot run their own server. It's harcoded to use Canonical's servers for obtaining snaps and their metadata...

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/4c9c4353-fd35-49c6-accf-3fd23e3d50ef.jpeg

seething Ubuntu fans are funny af lol.
Your leash being longer than average doesn't remedy the fact that you're still tied to a pole...

alsaaas , 15 days ago

no you didn't, you can install flatpak using the terminal but iirc flatpak are mostly made with GUI applications in mind, while snaps support installing command line utils quite well

alsaaas , 17 days ago

please just offer good matrix integration and be done with it

alsaaas , 22 days ago

we making it into techo-feudalism with that pattern 🗣️🗣️🗣️

alsaaas , 22 days ago (edited 22 days ago)

LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (Directors Cut)

should be good in filtering out some of the people I wouldn't want to interact with anyway

alsaaas , 22 days ago

That's not the RAF I'd join /hj

alsaaas , 25 days ago (edited 22 days ago)

capitalism corrupts everything it touches with enough time

can't wait for the fediverse to die 🙂

EDIT: I thought it was obvious that my illogical phrase, in combination with the emoji, would be recognized as sarcasm, but apparently y'all need a big "/s"

alsaaas , 27 days ago

which is based

alsaaas OP Mod , 1 month ago

The main reason your borders exist is to protect colonial privilege and capital

alsaaas OP Mod , 1 month ago

they enable it en masse, even if they are not fascists themselves. They do not question the status quo and are the “good cop” to the rep “bad cop”

also in what world are liberals and socdems considered socialists?

alsaaas OP Mod , 24 days ago

hmm ok where to start

first of all, I'm sorry if my

In what world are liberals and socdems considered socialists?

seemed like a passive aggressive reminder of the com's rules, since it was not meant as such but rather an honest expression of opinion, that liberals and so called social democrats could not be further away from socialism than conservatives.

Consider this: socialism (by it's non-revisionist defenition) is the public ownership or democratic control over the economy by working ppl (instead of ppl who own for a living as it is now).
Liberals and "socdems" have accepted the neoliberal economic base and have long given up on actually overcoming it. Unlike their openly reactionary or conservative counterparts (or rather brethren in defense of financial capital), however, they do a ton of virtue signaling and fluffy talking about how they're going to fix things.
The Republicans act as the stick of capital, while the Democrats as it's carrot.
From them you'll get nothing but token concessions at best (like some of their domestic policies) and reactionary politics with a nice paint job at worst (like their foreign policies. They still have us imperialism at heart, even if they might put on a silk glove on the iron fist that the Republicans use, it hurts just as much in the global south).

To quote X:

The white liberal is the most dangerous thing in the entire wester hemisphere. He is the most deceitful, he's like a fox. And a fox is always more dangerous in the forest than the wolf. You can see the wolf coming, you know what he is up to. But the fox will fool you. He comes at you with his mouth shaped in such a way, that even though you see his teeth, you think he is smiling.

All their supposed progress and opposition to capital only reinforces and propels capitalism, alleviating the need for fascism just for a little longer (which arises for the ruling classes when the majority of the population grows disillusioned with their lies, be they conservative or "progressive"). In the end only legitimizing the underlying framework, without ever threatening it.

Now don't get me wrong, in the USA the dictatorship of capital reigns supreme and manifests in essentially two wings of the same party ("The United States is a one-party state, but with typical us opulence, they have two of them."), swapping the mask of opposition every once in a while (good cop, bad cop).
Under such conditions I also would vote for the Democratic party. However the apologetic attitude of "Vote for the Dems, it'll gradually solve our problems and save our democracy from the reps", which translates in all the agitprop efforts being put into electing one rich corrupt old man over another, takes energy away from the real socialist struggle: not fighting the symptoms, but taking the problem that is capitalism by the root and ripping it out. You can vote all you like, you will still live under dictatorship of capital...

As Berthold Brecht said:

Those who do not want to give up the private ownership of the means of production will not be able to get rid of fascism, but need it

In other words: fascism is a degenerated, protective form which capitalism relies on, when it can no longer fool the people and keep them docile with liberalism

(just to clarify on my use of quotes: I do not think of the people I quote as some form of authority to appeal to in mediation. It's just when I remember what someone else has already put into words (much better than I ever could) smth relevant to the discussion, I like to use it directly and give credit (when I can remember who said it) instead of rephrasing it.)

---

tl;dr: the distinction between dems and reps is not one of "left/right" but rather one of "right/further right".
And the distinction between socialist on the one and liberals (and their socdem variety), revisionists, and outright reactionaries in a red coating on the other side, is not a case of leftist infighting but the distinction between the collaborators of capital and it's enemy's.
You can still vote for the Dems, just don't waste your (and the peoples) energy one creating the illusion that they'll be anything other but a temporary breathing stop in late stage capitalism's road to fascism.

alsaaas OP Mod , 22 days ago

I fail to see the contradiction tbh. It is precisely bc I am aware that the Dems are more progressive than the Republicans, that I said "I'd vote for the dems" (despite both of them serving capital).

And ofc the Dems are not leftists if we define the status quo as capitalism and leftism as the progressive opposition to the status quo (and those are the definitions I uphold).

Also I (unfortunately) am not posting from a socialist agitprop centre. I am under no illusion that my (shit)posts will destabilize anyone or anything. They are meant for other socialists and are a way of veting frustrations among other things.

tl;dr: one can recognize the Dems as the "lesser" of two evils, while still heavily criticizing the fact that the only choice is between two (or more under multi-part bourgeois "democracy") evils in the first place...
"If voting changed things systematically, it would be illegal"

alsaaas Mod , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

I’m sure all those Vietnamese workers love walking past statues of Ho Chi Minh and liberationist/progressive/commie monuments on their way to work for multi-national companies or when speculating on the Ho Chi Minh stock exchange

It’s just social democracy at this point tbh
Tho don’t get me wrong, this one is not entirely on the CPV (even though the party bureaucracy plays a huge part in this), but simply losing virtually all networks of solidarity to other socialists contries (especially with China being on the capitalist road)

alsaaas Mod , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

yes that is smth I am also critically aware of and highly condemn, does not mean that I’m blind to revisionism or the fact that a lot of it is caused by said (neo-)colonialism/imperialism

just fyi: your comment kind of has “but you posted that from your iphone”-vibes tbh

alsaaas Mod , 1 month ago

that’s a weird way to spell “enabling them in the first place” 🤔

alsaaas Mod , 1 month ago

Not specifically (yet), it’s just good practice to credit someones work. Especially when it’s such a good (and dare I say based) webcomic series

alsaaas Mod , 1 month ago

ah ok, I did not know that

alsaaas Mod , 1 month ago

narodnics joined the chat

alsaaas Mod , 22 days ago

It's supposed to be funny bc the failed idealism of the Narodniks later lead to the individual terrorist approach of the "Narodnaya Volya" ("Peoples Will")

(this is not meant to be a jab at anarchists btw, just thought it was midly relevant and funny/ironic)

alsaaas OP Mod , 1 month ago

idk ask so called social democrats and democratic socialists

alsaaas Mod , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Ik that there is no such thing as “Kropotkinism” etc., was just using the “traditions” as a way to differentiate it from/make a comparison with “anarcho”-capitalism

All of the major anarchist works are on my reading list and I do want to understand them once I have a good grasp of Marxism as a philosoph/school of thought.
Thus far I find materialist dialectics & organized (party) work to be one of/if not the best approach(es), but that might change as my understanding grows, who knows :p

alsaaas OP Mod , 1 month ago

libs gotta lib

alsaaas , 13 days ago

luckily no actual red would ever include mutualists (in the red)

smth smth the hell of capitalism is the firm, not the fact that it has a boss smth smth markets force even cooperatives to behave like capitalist cooperations smth smth

alsaaas , 13 days ago

...no? I just wouldn't include them as reds, tho they still seem to be generally anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, progressive and so on

even if they're largely irrelevant and an internet phenomenon