Yeah, at some point it’s not even about convincing the person you’re arguing with. Good points.

How does Azov force the government to do what they want? Can you give an example?

I see. That explains why I had never heard the term before. I was fourteen or fifteen when the annexation of Crimea occurred, so I certainly wasn’t paying attention. It makes sense why people here don’t talk about them. It really undermines this idea that people in these oblasts are welcoming the Russian liberators.

So is that just not true? Is there anything that actually supports the idea that people in Crimea and the Donbass want to reaffix to Russia? The elections were a landslide, and I doubt they were faked, but maybe they were? Were these just paramilitaries send to support existing rebels? This is kind of big news to me.

I like how he didn’t get the Breaking Bad reference

Easier than moving by a long shot. Cuba here I come.

Best? Probably our boy Karl. Worst? Ayn Rand.

Earth is objectively the coolest, obviously, but Venus is a “yas queen slaaaaaay” in my book. Absolute girlboss. So hot.

I know Castro wasn’t too hot on the LGBTQ property, but is there any evidence that he rounded them up and put them in camps? For being gay?

Obviously this is extreme and hateful rhetoric, but isn’t there a kernel of truth to the idea that settlers need to be driven off of stolen land for decolonization to succeed? If violent resistance is off the table, what exactly does that leave us with?

These are the same people that fell for the Borat schtick

It’s like the “Israelis” aren’t actually indigenous or something

Never ever seen a girl in thigh high socks because I don’t live in anime world.

Comrade Castro my people yearn for freedom. Please send MiG-29 fighter jets to liberate occupied Ohio from the mosquitoes.

Read “abortion pills” as abortion, because that’s the vast majority of abortions.

Land of the free.

Bad dementia

It sounds like the government doesn’t really have a lot of answers. Couldn’t this just be speculation?

Some shitheel politician from Texas, never did anything memorable.

Quick question, I was always taught in school that blitzkrieg was enabled by innovations in tank technology. If it’s not that, what enabled Hitler to (briefly) overwhelm much of Europe?

These two statements don’t really go together. If you respect the rights of sex workers, you’ll aim to abolish the system which oppresses and rapes them. It really has nothing to do with moralizing over sex.

I think that last bit about China is a bit unfair. Murder is illegal everywhere, and everywhere there’s murder. It doesn’t mean murder generally isn’t being “handled well.” I’d be more curious about the volume and nature of sex work in China.

Is pornography still exploitative if no money changes hands? I figure if I want to put my ass on the internet for free, there’s nothing wrong with that, right? I’m not sure how that specific kind of pornography relates to capitalism.

And what about drawn pornography? Are we coming after the furries? lol

It depends how close they are to a Marxist understanding of the world… I can talk with my twin sister pretty easily about even the spicy stuff, but propaganda has made it difficult to express my views with the average person. People will flip their shit if you even mention Stalin, Mao, or the others, much less suggest that they weren’t literally Hitler.

There’s also the reality that being a communist is a bit like being an atheist or a vegan. These beliefs aren’t compatible with current liberal society, and consequently even encountering a communist as a liberal can feel like an attack. That obviously doesn’t hold true for everyone, but it does happen. I hold my tongue most of the time.

That’s not him in the picture, is it?

Mega based

I’ve seen this map before…

Lin-Manuel Miranda?

While that’s true, it doesn’t really answer the question.

They’re pro-slavery lol

I can help, but know I’ve had no experience being a mod.

This first happened to me when I read “Elementary Principles of Philosophy” by Georges Politzer. Was sold on Marxism ever since. Here’s the link if you want to check it out.

Absolutely obsessed with the Harry Potter reference

My understanding is that after Lenin “recovered” from his second stroke, after he started investigating personally, the scrutiny aimed at Stalin lessened. Lenin had his third stroke before the party met to discuss Stalin’s actions in Georgia, but Trotsky was there, and he gave a lot of ground to Stalin’s side. Strong talks about that in the book I linked. That to me indicates that Lenin’s investigations clarified things in a light that favored Stalin, but that’s just my speculation I suppose.

I am fairly certain that Lenin’s request to remove Stalin from office was dictated after his second stroke.

But I think I’ve lost the thread of the argument. If you’re critiquing the Great Purges, my understanding was there was a real threat of Nazi collaboration within the Soviet Union. That comes to me word of mouth, though I do recall reading something by Grover Furr explaining that Trotsky was guilty of this.

Fair enough. Read the first chapter of that source and tell me if there’s some good reason I shouldn’t take it at its word. From what Strong claims, it sounds like Lenin had more serious conflicts with these other characters than he ever had with Stalin, even if he may have known them personally for longer. If Lenin was able to forgive these guys, I don’t think it’s fair to suppose that he wouldn’t have forgiven Stalin (assuming that’s what you’re saying).

http://209.151.22.101/Journalists/Strong-AL/TheStalinEra-AL-Strong-1956.pdf

Lenin recovered from his second stroke enough to investigate the Georgia matter himself before suffering his third stroke and dying. You make it sound like Lenin was warning the world of the evils of Stalin on his deathbed, and that’s just not what happened.

And Stalin and Lenin had been colleagues and friends for twenty years by this time. They knew each other since 1905. And was he not in prison for working on the revolutionary socialist project?

And I apologize for being rude, but this is just contrary to everything I’ve learned about Stalin. Frankly, it feels indistinguishable from liberal histories of Stalin, which have been extremely falsified. So when I say you’ve been mislead in a serious way, I’m being quite serious.

You’ve been mislead in a very serious way. That “warning,” which is more critical of Trotsky than of Stalin, comes from Stalin’s only conflict with Lenin, which happened to take place during Lenin’s last days, over Stalin’s supposed “brutality” in Georgia. Since Lenin only got this information second-hand (he was bedridden), he never published that “testament.” Once he recovered, he began to investigate personally. After he did, Stalin was acquitted.

On another note, those “left-wing Bolsheviks” like Zinoviev and Kamenev betrayed Lenin at the very hour of the revolution. Trotsky had been against it until that hour. Stalin and Lenin had been working together to bring about the revolution for decades, longer than any of these “left-wing Bolsheviks,” and on top of that he never backstabbed Lenin. The idea that Lenin and Trotsky of all people were close friends and Stalin was a distant, shifty politician lurking in the background waiting to take power is absurd. Stalin was the only legitimate successor to Lenin, especially since he built the party into power even before Lenin’s death.

Stalin saved the world from the Nazis too, so you might want to show a little bit of respect for this great leader. I think part of that respect involves doing your research before you unknowingly reiterate these lies in an explicitly pro-AES community.

Aristotle thought women had fewer teeth than men. Plato thought that abstractions were real. Everyone but Heraclitus was convinced all change was illusory and history moved in a flat circle. It’s amazing how people ignore that all of these philosophers have more or less been proven wrong by modern science.

This is super interesting and exactly what I was looking for, no offense to the other valid points made. I’ve also recently learned about Lao Tzu, who was a contemporary of Heraclitus, the “Father of Dialectics.”

If you have the money, support, and desire to do so, go to college. If not, trade school is a pretty good option. It’s a better return on your investment, anyway. Those jobs will always be needed. Tech can get you pretty far too, if that’s your thing.

You could always spend a couple years in community college and finish out your undergrad at a public university if you’re broke, and you’ll probably be able to go on to grad school without too much financial difficult due to stipends and what not, but you’ll be poor all the while. Don’t get any ideas about starting a family until you’re a bit older. That’s just the reality of living under capitalism right now, unfortunately.

I think you should follow your heart on this one. If you’re gonna be working forty hours every week for decades, you should try to enjoy your work. That’s probably a little bourgeois, but it’s just my two cents.

While being conscientious about your diet and eating habits is definitely wise, I would advise you to just eat whenever you’re hungry and stop eating when you’re full. Eat slowly, don’t do anything else when you eat, and make sure the food is wholesome. If you want to have one big meal a day, that’s fine too, but just bear in mind that like you said, the way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you burn. There’s really no gimmick to it.

I tried intermittent fasting when I was still running cross country, and while I did lose a little weight, I was also running at least five miles a day. Now that I’m taking Adderall, I intermittently fast whether I like it or not, yet I’ve been gaining weight.

I’d be suspicious of these dieting strategies and the culture they are a part of. Not everything is down to being skinny, and we come in all shapes and sizes. Just my two cents.

Thanks!