Hello and welcome to our community tradition of a weekly discussion thread. Before we begin we here at GZD would like to wish Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin a happy birthday. Now please join us in singing for he is a jolly good fellow as we cut the cake!
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Young Pioneer organizations of 14 countries
China, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Mongolia, South Yemen, Vietnam, North Korea, East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Laos.
I feel like being vegan is less acceptable than being a communist. Whenever I talk about communism with people they do not always accept it but at least they tolerate it it seems. Being vegan though. Oh no. That’s the biggest sin you can commit.
Even if I didn’t know you lived in Europe and not the US this comment alone could’ve convinced me lmao.
It is very much the opposite here; the wrong person finding out you’re a commie can actually get you death threats or even actually result in being physically attacked. Vegans, at worst, will just be mocked.
Has largely been the opposite experience for me, lol.
Hello, does anyone have resources on how I can use AI while keeping brain rot to a minimum?
I abhor how it entices me to talk to it about my feelings or offload critical thinking on it.I’ve had decent luck with perplexity.ai. It’s an AI-assisted search engine, its results are pretty good, and it handles long queries much better than google.
Generally speaking, don’t take it at its word and consider it like it’s an assistant, or even just an ideas machine.
Example: I’ve used an LLM before when there’s a term I can’t think of the name for. I describe what I can remember about the term and see what it comes up with. Then, if it gives me something concrete to work with (e.g. doesn’t go “I don’t know” or something), I put that into a web search and see what comes up. I cross-reference the information, in other words. Sometimes the AI is a little bit off but still close enough I’m able to find the real term.
Cross-referencing / sanity checks are important for LLM use because they can get deep into confidently wrong rabbit holes at times, or indulge whatever your train of thought is without having the human capability to extricate itself at some point. So whether it’s a web search or checking something it said to you against another real person, you can use this to ground yourself more so on how you’re engaging with it. It’s not that different from talking to other real people in that way (the main difference is I would recommend having a much stronger baseline skepticism of anything an LLM tells you than with a person). Even with the people we trust the most in life, it’s still healthy to get second opinions, get perspective beyond them, work through the reasoning of what they’ve said, etc. No one source, computer or human, knows it all.
if you want to lose few brain cells and see racism
I wish there were more communist video essayists who didn’t primarily talk about politics but instead discussed stuff like history, writing, gaming, guns, etc. Literally anything that isn’t politics, really.
There’s nothing worse than when I’m enjoying a good critique of some trashy media and then the person in the video libs out and compares the villain to Stalin or makes that stupid “haha commie no food” joke or starts complaining about how evil, sinister China is planning evil, sinister things because the company that made the media is Chinese or something to that effect. It takes me out of what was otherwise a good, informative video and whacks me with severe mental exhaustion.
There’s all these video essayists out here promoting their liberal or fascist ideologies while simultaneously focusing on topics that aren’t explicitly about political theory, political science, current events, geopolitics, etc. and I’d like to see communists doing the same thing like a Marxist explaining the rationale behind why Soviet firearms developed the way they did, or picking apart how cyberpunk settings don’t work even if they look cool as settings, or just discussing the history of ancient civilizations like the Achaemenids from a dialectical materialist perspective or stuff like that.
Like, I enjoy what Hakim does and all. It’s very important work of course. I just feel like it might be easier to expose people to Marxist ideals through discussion of pop culture and the like and then use this as a jumping point to funnel people down the rabbit hole of actual political theory. Also it’d just be nice to sit down and watch a video about how to write villains and not have one of the examples used be fucking Stalin of all people - I actually did click on a video discussing this exact topic and deadass the video opened with the essayist talking about how “some people don’t get punished for all the harm they’ve done” (paraphrased) while showing video of Stalin and I had never clicked off a video so quickly in my life. I audibly groaned.
I’m just tired, boss. I’m just tired of libs and fash dominating every discussion about everything. I want to be able to consume the thoughts and feelings of other people discussing things I’m interested in without them having shitty political takes about how Obama is a “cool guy” and a complete misunderstanding of historical socialism up to the point of treating the Holodomor as a serious narrative and not a complete invention of Nazi propaganda.
I don’t not want politics in my videos that aren’t about political subjects; I just want the politics to be GOOD.
I get that, it’s annoying when someone who seems fine in a particular hobby area suddenly displays awful, barely related politics. Communist video essayists could do this in the same way but in the other direction, where they don’t even advertise their views, but instead just sprinkle it in now and then. Long as they’re serious enough in the delivery that it doesn’t get confused with ironic references.
Exactly!
Yeah. It does get annoying when people have to put their anti-communist brain worms on display unprompted. Its a side effect of the success of the congress for cultural freedom.
When our time comes we will make no excuses for the
terrorinjecting good politics into everything.
Ever since that new chinese ww2 has been making the rounds, I have seen an extreme spike in westerners claiming that the cpc “waited” out the war in caves and then claimed victory, while in earnest the KMT did all the fighting. Or worse that the chinese communists attacked the KMT while they were invaded by the japanese, linking metaphorically it to “tankies/ultras/doomers/wreckers/etc…” refusing to work with socdems inside capitalist political parties.
IIRC wasn’t it the KMT that kept breaking the truce and attacking the Reds?
Doing this Secret Santa thing with friends and the person I drew is a huge history nerd. I stumbled upon an old nazi propaganda magazine from 1940 and figured it was a fun gift. I had a look inside and apart from some archaic Dutch language the general subjects could be copy pasted by current day right wing parties lol. Dehumanizing language, propaganda of ‘we are righteous and strong’ and whatever bullshit.
I did have a strong urge to clarify that I’m not a nazi when I went to the register lol.
brainrot or not
Honestly, if you can look past the Internet culture brainrot, it’s a pretty good video. You should make it its own post.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I’m honestly so excited for this course on Imperialism by the Critical Theory Workshop.
Edit: website source for the image: https://criticaltheoryworkshop.com/upcoming-events/
That course sounds really good!
I find it’s hard not to feel a bit arrogant sometimes having ML views in the west. I don’t really like feeling that way, but I have the feeling sometimes. Maybe lingering arrogance from previous socialization is part of it. But I also think a factor is that the western status quo insists on being blind to the insight and direction that scientific socialism can provide. So it’s like you’re on “team science but applied to politics” and they’re like “nuh uh, that’s communism, communism bad.” And even with a basic understanding of the framework, you’re already so far past on understanding how things work and why, and what could be done differently. It doesn’t even mean you’re good at it in a broader, practiced sense (like you might be really bad at it compared to an average party member in an AES state), but compared to the average westerner with no understanding of it, it’s leaps and bounds just to have the basics.
So I don’t know. I self-hate arrogance and ego in general. But maybe that feeling is my way of coping with how politically illiterate people tend to be. Arrogance rather than despairing about it or something.
I definitely felt like that for the beginning of my learning, but nowadays I just feel confused by every kind of media and discussion around me being painted in lib views, to the point of experiencing paranoia / delusion. Glad that those times are behind me, but now I tend to devolve into blood boiling anger if I’m by myself, but try to remind me to ask others questions about their understanding, instead of devolving into debate culture. lol
Yeah I feel that way sometimes too. The western liberal status quo can be really frustrating, especially their stubborn resistance to new perspectives. Arrogance about having ML views probably feels better than that frustration.
When I notice arrogance in myself, I try to remember that everyone has to start somewhere - that there was a time before I became an ML, when I was an ignorant radlib westerner lost in a sea of propaganda. It’s humbling (even somewhat embarrassing in hindsight), and it helps me to be a more effective educator when I can have empathy and understand where people are at. Not trying to give any unsolicited advice, just sharing my own experience.
Thanks, yeah, that’s a healthy reminder. Reminds me, one way I try to combat it is to reframe my own situation as the result of a lot more than just me. For example, remembering the people who most contributed to my learning about this stuff. Or remembering a place like this and how it has contributed to my growth in it.
Happy birthday Stalin!
Brazilian Senate just approved the soft amnesty for the coup plotters, with support from parties that are part of the executive government.
Lula has announced that he’ll veto it, but in a very milquetoast way, without calling for further mobilisation and already paying lip service to the fact that the Congress can overrule his veto. Depending on how long he takes to actually veto, it could be during Christmas time to sabotage further mobilisations or January, when people will have more time to prepare.
He could also only do a partial veto, as he has done on the past with another bill that destroyed environmental protections. The partial vetos were also overruled by Congress.
We need more communist comedians who make comedy sketches on the internet. We don’t have enough light hearted propaganda.
Our chairman raoul hedebouw is very funny & his sense of humor is what wins many people over … he is currently polling as the most popular politican in the french speaking side of our country, to the point where most people dont care hes a communist and just think hes a very charismatic funny guy, our party also uses a lot of humor in our propaganda and it works really well so i agree completely and im extremely proud of him & our party
any Indian comrades here shine some light on dharundhar movie? is it a piece of shit jingoistic govt bollywood propaganda movie or am I misreading it?
Not Indian but watch Bollywood movies sometimes. Haven’t seen this one but judging from the plot, it seems like propaganda. Doesn’t bollywood have ties to BJP, like Hollywood has ties to the US miltary? That makes it even more likely
Not Indian but watch Bollywood movies sometimes
I absolutely will be using this sentence in my life from now on
How so?
Idk as a stand alone sentence it sounds so funny if there is no further context. Like ‘Not Dutch but I do wear clogs sometimes’
I’m not American but I occasionally eat burger
“I’m not trans but I play Fallout: New Vegas sometimes.”
Been trying therapy lately and it actually works. I’m starting to feel like I can breathe again. Unfortunately it is taking up politics time for now.
I’m also working on myself more lately, and also notice I have less time for politics. Sucks how we can’t do both. But think I will be more effective in my politics if I’m more emotionally stable
