This is just a bunch of gestures. The reality is that AES states are truly guided by Marxism, and are true attempts at Communism, but haven’t made it to the Communist stage of development.

Why are you including things which have not yet made it to the Communist stage of development as examples of success of Marxist theory? That isn’t a proof that Communism is great yet. It’s calling the experiment before actually seeing if it works.

And I am not quick to call the USSR or Cuba particularly Dictatorships of the Proletariat. They became actual Dictatorships that carried forward the heirachy of the paramilitary organizations that spawned them never ceeding them to the workers councils like they were supposed to do instead creating new dynasties of career politicians…Career politicians of a one party state are not “working class”.

It really is a hype based philosophy. I look at Marx as a bit of a stochastic terrorist of his time. His ideas aren’t dangerous particularly taken with a grain of salt but because they are written to lead one to become angrier and angrier without being given an outlet to work towards things on a constructive way Communist communities start hopeful and sour over time.

He always dances around how that limiting of other classes authority and individual inequities is going to be handled because the answer… Is violence. A generous read is that he is naive to believe everyone will see he’s right and kumbaya the whole thing into existence but more likely because of the language he uses other places he’s flat out for the nessisary purge required to achieve his aims.

Issue being is anarchic mobs are generally fairly weak… So to make a successful change you basically need paramilitary leaderships and military like heirachy to achieve that purge… And then so far in history that paramilitary heirachy never has effectively dissolved after the fact because if everybody is doing communism correctly creating competeting heirachy is antithetical… You are just supposed to ignore that the paramilitary heirachy that becomes the state isn’t strictly playing by Marx’s rules either but by then a population isn’t in a position to argue.

It depends on what ideas you deem to be “correct”. He was very good at elucidation of the nature of how European models of property rights were impacting large swaths of the population at large… But its difficult to say if he had everything figured out because his “dictatorship of the proletariat” doesn’t seem to ever actualize in a lasting fashion. It usually ends up as an authoritarian state arguably because the system is vulnerable to the first group that decides to break faith with the covenant. A lot of Communist hopefuls tend to either take the examples of this happening as “not true Communism” or try to minimize the bad aspects of regimes that adopted the principles… It does seem once power is too laterally spread it becomes weak to any hierarchy that as long as they can talk a good game and use Marxist language.

In either case a lot of us would not call those outcomes “proven correct”. I would say he had some very lasting ideas which are useful tools… But the fact that none of the places where attempted enactment have particularly lived up to his hype means that like a lot of philosophy of his time that the answers are a lot more complex and nuanced than he could have forseen.

Actually I find that it allows more range of Socialism strains to be discussed. A lot of Marxists tend to look rather poorly at any mixed Socialism blends as either heretical or as liminal states with Communism as a complete end goal instead of being legitimate in their own right.

Where ever Marxism tends to particularly flourish erasure of a lot of other Socialist philosophy tends to be the norm. Socialism is a big range of different veiws of how publicly held and private property domains intermix with a lot of foundational philosophy some of which pre-dates or were contemporaries of Marx. Marx may have coined the term but it’s important to remember that when he was writing his work there were specific peers in his feild that some of it was directed at who he was sort of in agreement with and sort of not. Many wholeheartedly adopted his term for the broad stroke of their own philosophy even though they would later be at loggerheads about details. Later in life Marx really did not get along with other prominent Socialists of his era. Those who subscribe very heavily to his text tend to follow his tradition of being very dismissive of other Socialist strains and rather combative because the text is very fiery and segments well into calls for violence

If one wants to go talk Marxism the other instances are always there and are generally better venues. It’s valuable to have spaces that have differences so that other schools of political thought have air. As far as Marxists here go, since having a group that usually denies others the very words they use to self identify by, demanding they be called illegitimate, sucks all the air from the room they are generally not particularly welcome in the space unless they demonstrate they can play nice with others.

Well it is “the Rules of the Tribe of Levi” canonically speaking they are laws made not by God but by a bunch of priests. It is important for biblical historical context reasons but technically speaking these are ancient society laws. It’s why instructional portions detailing animal sacrifice are included in that section when modern Christians tend to look at animal sacrifice as a satanic cult kind of thing.

Provided you are Christian ( before the atheists start in, I’m not - I just study the religion as a part of gaining historical background info) Using Leviticus to justify one’s opinions on anything strikes me as showing that one read the text absent the scholarly context. A lot of Christians do this because book annotations wouldn’t be a thing before 1000 AD and it really benefited a lot of powerful people to never mention context of the compiling process of the book because once the supposed less than divine fingerprints on the processed material are brought to light it weakens it’s power as a tool of authority.

Oh it happens. We as a community aren’t all angels. Some of us get very VERY warped by religious or cultural trauma where because the base assumption is that we are monsters already by virtue of being something shameful there is a lowered boundary to other shamed behaviours…

But what stops that shame spiral is normalizing queer identities and creating good community with good praxis. Consent is king in so many queer spaces where I am because we’ve all basically had to imbibe the lessons of therapy to rescue people out of the dark. We discuss gold standards of sexual health and behaviour and conduct with frankness and lack of shame because generations of us were abandoned to places where we were vulnerable to exploitation. To become a pdf file is to lose your community as nothing is so disgusting to people in queer spaces as someone who would cause that kind of damage as it is expected that you know exactly what the knock on effects of that act are.

There is a fair amount of speculation that being bi is actually way more common than is generally thought but because current cultural rules of compulsory heterosexuallity codes being bi as being something you must act on to actually be considered that identity a lot of people believe that they are straight simply because they never acted on the attraction.

For guys the comp-het mindset also tends to discount basically any situation where they feel dominant because “straight” and “masculine” to them basically means that as long as they are the petetrative element in a place of absolute control via power dynamics or violence then it doesn’t count as “gay”. Essentially since as long as it holds no emotional attachment to them it doesn’t count. As long as they can’t code their behaviour as “feminine” it doesn’t count.

Which to the rest of us is fucking bonkers…

Bit rich coming from the guy who refuses to learn English isn’t it? Leaves that adjective just dangling there unsupported at the cliff edge of the sentence.

Or maybe it’s a mad lib? " They are teaching transgender… Dance crazes. Gardening. Lions. Barbecue techniques."

If he leaves the spot empty we can put whatever we want there when we quote him right?

Love the idea… But let’s be real, Conservative rhetoric has depended on attacking peoples trust in acedemia, administrative government positions and anyone who is an expert who doesn’t reinforce the vibe of being a “dissenting voice”. Fact checks make those of us who understand sourcing feel like we’re owning the idiots, but for the Conservative audience iit very rarely shifts people out of their steadfast adherence and instead tends to make them distrust the medium the debate is held in.

Conservative rhetoric has been a poisoned well for a long time. To play by their game one has to look more at a vibes based playbook. Their voting block generally have a misplaced overconfidence in their own ability to read body language and tone. It’s literally not the words and definitely not the facts, it’s the affect they are delivered in.

It’s part of why they dunno how to think about Harris and have conspiracy theories about her earrings piping her answers. She is outperforming Trump on affect of delivery based on their playbook and they don’t know how to interpret that.

I would say less than on reddit but still a thing. Being cisgender still is treated as a norm and the sort of folks who openly display misogynistic tendencies are fewer and farther between… But any innocuous mention to being trans will very get you a couple of dedicated downvoters or people who use gender essentialist arguements, silencing tactics (oh you’re just being devisive) or transphobic rhetoric.

Not to say that it is bad comparatively. This is one of the most trans neutral places on the internet. It’s not “trans friendly” mind you, I would categorize that as places where concensus about trans people being a normal thing to be has been reached and attention has shifted away from our basic rights as being up for debate… But trans neutral spaces are important too. We need holding spaces away from places where trans people talk openly where people can get to know us where the majority of support shuts down open hostility towards us prompting more nuanced interaction.

A lot of trans hostile spaces exist out there where being openly trans or advocacy for our needs invites a lot of death threats, calls for suicide, doxxing attacks and so on. If you see a comment section on youtube on a queer creator for instance that’s overwhelmingly trans positive that generally means there’s heavy moderation at play because they are trying to create spaces safe for their queer audience to interact with each other. What you as a casual visitor generally don’t see is the mental cost being taken on by that moderation team to artificially create the illusion of that positive space. Here on this instance that level of moderation is unnecessary because generally speaking the volume is manageable.

He didn’t mention anything about the Log cabin Republicans or purifying his own party so I am guessing that’s gunna be a future suggestion once he’s in power. Right now he still needs their support.

That urban sprawl mechanism getting nixed is one of the better things to occur. Since maintaining roads, electric and water lines, fire safety coverage and so on are government expenditures this densifing initiative they have going is actually pretty on point.

Problem is the government doesn’t want to upset the applecart for those who invested in the family home by cratering their portfolios so they are doing everything they can to mince around homeowners so the initiative to cool the market is the softest most delicate corrections they can manage. That sort of approach is gunna take a long time to work and is going to be vulnerable as hell to NIMBY counter initiatives. It’s good to see the government is getting more creative with time but until everyone recognizes that property investing was built on risks one signed on when you bought the sort of big actions needed aren’t going to serve up a fix unless the bubble bursts on it’s own.

I mean…Antlers are shed naturally every year so I guess if someone decided to sacrifice some rando on a bed of my family’s collective families nail clippings I would be pretty perturbed too.

Then congratulations, this meme isn’t about you so maybe you don’t need to feel attacked yeh?

As someone who is 15 years into the situation OP described - yes it’s somewhat of an oversimplication of how it all works… but broadstokewise it’s on the money with the right partner and mindset. Whether your marriage works this way or not comes down to how fungible you both believe your partner to ultimately be and how much you dedicate to being each other’s joy.

Thinking being pessimistic in the face of romance is just “reality” means your chances of experiencing that kind of romance become mighty slim. Optimism and trust are nessisary components to making it happen but are sadly also attractive to abusers. End of the day I wish OP the very best of luck because coming home to your partner excited to see them every day for years on end really is worth the attempt.

This highlights a contradiction between Christianity and the modern secular world. Biblically speaking children are chattel property of their parents. In modern law children have their own universal set of human rights, so essentially by that model children belong to themselves and rightful guardianship goes to a succession of people if parents and family do not follow those rules.

But you see constant tension with this idea of child being property to do with as one pleases. It’s also the history of why we use the term “disowned”.

Having grown up under a model of parental stewardship where my parents always saw me as a person they were to train to become an autonomous adult I gotta say the difference between my family and my biblically raised neighbours is pretty stark. That kind of stability has had knock on effects throughout my entire life where I have become a life raft of sorts for friends of mine who grew up with religious trauma.

It’s not often you see an orange man-chicken mechanically de-boned on national televised debate. Him not wanting a second helping is understandable.

Next time she might bring the 11 herbs and spices.

A demonstration that the person is not interested in a conversation, they just want to grandstand and use rhetoric tricks to feel like they are superior and are strictly aiming to used the conversation as a way to inflate their sense of self worth at the cost of treating you like a human being.

“No way I am reading all that” on a average sized post while expounding their opinion in an equally lengthy paragraph is usually the same start of the end. These people are generally not actively trolling they are just up their own ass. If they cannot demonstrate basic intellectual mutual respect after having this pointed out to them blocking them is both for best of us.

A particular pet peeve is people who quote every bit of a post in sections to refute it. It’s lazy and I have witnessed it from people in my life who are extremely narcissistic. Writing your own brief is respectful. Essentially writing over someone else’s entire post with red pen isn’t. It’s not a block, but it’s a contributing factor

If it’s someone using very bad faith rhetoric like moving goalposts or extreme cherrypicking - basically any stuff that demonstrates obvious trolling I don’t block, I counterpunch. My goal becomes making sure you do not leave the arguement with what you come there for.

All in all I have blocked about 3 people. I believe in second chances so someone has to show no signs of improvement after about an average of 7 replies.

Yeah dysphoria/euphoria runs a gamut of severity. Some folk only experience the effects of the dopamine hit of it being what you want, some just have the perpetual downer… most of us it’s a combo plate of both.

And anorexia does have a somewhat similar approach to lessening body dysmorphia. Stay away from mirrors, avoid people who focus too much on your appearance… We as a society just have come to a concensus that making commentary about people’s weight is really rude and harmful. Anorexia however is socially based. It’s a response to a societies beauty standards and you don’t find it in cultures that don’t have those beauty standards. Transness however just pops up everywhere often in complete opposition to beauty standards, cultural norms or religious doctrine across time and place.

A lot of us go through this phase right before we accept being trans where we try to be like the apex version of our birth sex. We try to over gender perform because if you are the perfect cis man or woman you should be fine living off the external validation of others the way cis people do… But when that ultimately fails to fix the problems and actually often makes them worse the reality becomes there are only a few options. Be miserable until you run out of strength and die either by suicide or a life shortened by stress… Or you explore ways that might solve your rocksolid internal need but also potentially cost you family, friendships, careers, respect, safety and basically turn up the heat on external pressures to conform.

QED the pilot thing was probably a bad example I won’t use again.

How about this, if someone changed their name and you saw a picture of them from before that update… Maybe a baby pic let’s say, what name would you use when identifying the person in the picture?