Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
☭ Matrix homeserver and space
☭ Theory reading group on hiatus, will move to Lemmygrad later this year
☭ Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna’s Archive, libgen
Welcoming committee on Red Note is something else…
Good thing I already have a WeChat / Weixin account
Anyone else expect biden to do one more escalation in ukraine to poison the chalice? I’m not sure what it will be but I feel he will make a military move of significance to try to force Putin to fight back.
Trump will do that himself.
He’s never been anti-Ukraine, contrary to media claims.
Trump has nothing to gain propping up ukraine. He knows it is a lost cause and there is nothing trump likes less than a loser.
trump rightfully sees ukraine as a proxy for biden and other dems. Also zelenski is personally responsible for the first impeachment of trump. trump isn’t going to help someone who gave the dems ammunition against him.
No, I don’t think so. We’re in a New Cold War. If Trump pulls out of Ukraine, it won’t be because he sees it as a lost cause; it’ll be because Russian Federation won.
Trump is a politician and a billionaire and will support Ukraine until it’s no longer viable, just like he did in the last administration.
I’m verklempt: I’ve never watched Morning Joe and didn’t know it had a co-host, and I’d never heard of Mika Brzezinski, but the name Brzezinski I did know.
💀
With the TikTok ban coming (and probably gonna go through), do you guys think there’ll be a local competitor pop up? Or will everyone just be on the cesspool that is Instagram? Or perhaps move to the other Chinese app RedNote?
XHS is getting more Chinese speakers elsewhere.
Wdym, you mean that XHS is gonna make more overseas people learn Chinese?
The first time XHS attracted global users was both Chinese Malaysians and Singaporeans.
There would be a good reason why Chinese language learners would resort to XHS for assistance to answers.
I hope you all have a nice week :D
you, too Oppo
:D
I would buy those albums! Lol
Have a nice half fortnight! :D
Tragedy occurred today as I very unexpectedly lost a family member. The day has been kind of a blur and of course I am in a state of grief.
Despite all this one of the things I keep thinking about is work tomorrow, wondering if it’s deserved for me not to go. If anyone came to me and asked me a question if they were in a similar situation, I’d say of course you should stay at home. For myself it’s often more difficult, I find.
I just hate this system in which a natural and human thing to do, grieving, becomes a questionable thing because god forbid you miss out on a day of work. Fuck this system.
Do what you think it is best, comrade. It’s really sad that we don’t have the right to grieve.
My sincere condolences. I hope that you get the chance to grief even in the middle of this madness of a system. Sadly, finding time to grief is difficult.
Sorry to hear that, comrade. Hope you’re doing okay.
Take the day off, fren.
sorry to hear that dankzedong, unfortunately i’ve had too many unexpected tragedies happen to people close to me so i can relate to what you’re going through.
everyone griefs differently but in my experience in these sudden tragedies the worst comes after time passes, it’s as if you haven’t actually realized that your relative is gone and it hits like a truck when you do an activity you used to do with them.
Take the day. If they give you a hard time just tell them that you wouldn’t have been able to focus and would have just been in the way.
Hey comrades, I made an Arabic lesson on hexbear’s c/languagelearning if anyone is interested. Here is a Lemmygrad link.
I’d join to practice my Spanish but I’m banned
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
that xhs app in japan. today morning
night
it was at 13 yesterday
Doctors are alerting to be on edge about possible polio cases in the near future. Polio has been eradicated since the 60s here due to it being the only mandatory vaccine given to children. We are truly evolving backwards I think.
That’s an incredible picture. Wish i could go there one day. Speaking of which, if any comrade here still hasn’t read When Serfs Stood Up In Tibet, go do so asap (i linked the chapter on the visit to the Potala Palace cause i thought it fitting here, but you should probably start at the beginning, haha).
Almost got into a fight with a 50 something year old boomer at the gas station today. Was buying my typical poison at the gas station and with four people behind me this fuck cuts right in front of me.
Dude cuts in front of four people for two lottery tickets and I just step up aside him and start pressing him about how much he spends per month on those things and why he acts like a crackhead. Got a jolly “Ohhh so I’m a crackhead now?” and he stepped towards me right in front of my face. At that point I just shoved him back into lottery machine that was right next to the cashier till and he kinda half-crashed out and stood up and walked out holding the tickets in his hand waddling towards his big-ass truck.
Was probably on camera, not sure if I’m gonna get into trouble but at these days I’m at a certain breaking point where I just don’t give a fuck anymore. Hate these dumbass motherfuckers around here that grew up in petit-bougie homes that think the whole fucking world belongs to them.
Does anyone get these feelings? I have so much empathy for so many people in my life I work with, I deal with on a daily basis. I’ve volunteered for FNB and my local orgs. Does anyone else have this near homicidal rage when dealing with these blabbering caricatures of the truck driver from Disco Elysium? Just dealing with pure, selfish, unbridled pieces of fucking shit where you want to drive your thumbs to the back of their eye-sockets?
I think you’ll be ok on that one but you might want to find some way to enhance your calm.
I do. Even made a post about it one day and was kind of corrected by the Grad about it not being useful. They are right. Don’t get me wrong I still get these feelings though. The other day I was preparing my bike to ride home when a colleague saw me and wanted to stop next to me. Two fuckers on an electric razor scooter who were speeding nearly crashed into him and started giving him shit for something he wasn’t even in the wrong about. Even asking him if he needed a slapping, to which I jumped up and stood right in their faces saying that they now either needed to be the tough guys they think they are and slap me or move on. They moved on.
Now, if they started a fight I could’ve gotten seriously injured or maybe even dead, which would not benefit me at all. There is no use in fighting. But something about what you call pure, selfish, unbridled pieces of fucking shit makes me full of rage and I do want to claw their eyes out with a spoon.
I think it’s good to stand up for yourself and others. After all that’s a part of why we have this ideology I guess. On the other hand you do need to be cautious as some things just aren’t worth potentially dying for.
what do you think about this?
Broad claims with a veneer of logic and no sources.
Do they think people in the bottom income brackets in america can’t afford a phone?
75 percent of all Chinese people own a smart phone and that includes babies and old people. 90-95% of people between 15 and 40 own a smartphone in China. Over a billion people in China have a smart phone.
While the percentage of people in China who own multiple homes is higher than usa it isn’t because people are hoarding but because of over supply. This same person probably shared stories about ghost cities a few years ago. Many urban middle class people own a home in a rural area that they are simply unable to sell. The one child policy coupled with urbanization means rural towns have low to negative population growth and until new jobs are made in those places those homes will remain almost worthless.
Yes there is some wealth inequality in China but the percentage of people at the lowest end and highest end of the spectrum are a fraction of population with the bulk of them in the middle income range. Almost half of Americans are in the lowest 2 out of 8 tax brackets and 70% of people in the bottom 3/8 tax brackets (under $80K/year).
REDnote (小红书, XHS), the Instagram of China, mistaken for TikTok of China (technically it’s Douyin), is getting more hype among American users.
Should I get it?
Yea, what is going on rn is great. Chinese users are making content for the new american users, teaching their net expressions equivalents and just having fun
That’s good. I’ll download red note.
really funny quote I just heard. “Statisticians are just torturers. They torture data until it says whatever they want.”
Known as Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book,” RedNote features a layout similar to Pinterest and is often described as a Chinese version of Instagram. According to TechCrunch, the app’s focus on short-term content, similar to TikTok, has helped it emerge as a viable alternative.
I can’t believe this is real.
They’ll port it eventually
