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
what do you think about this?
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).
Broad claims with a veneer of logic and no sources.
really funny quote I just heard. “Statisticians are just torturers. They torture data until it says whatever they want.”
Switch 2 revealed
the most boring reveal ever too
Nintendo, Nintendo…
sigh
…I’m probably still going to get one though
me frfr
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.
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.
💀
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.
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.
bruh did biden really say that the good news was that he became a great grandfather during the california fires? LMAO
Fucking ghoul apparently showed up at a press conference about the fires and said “I’m the first president who is a great grandfather!” and then went on to blame state and local government for not stopping the fire.
All that matters is the preservation of the Biden Seed.
i found it hilarious lmao
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.
China does nothing: wins It’s amazing to see people downloading red note and causing it to reach number 1 in the iPhone App Store.
How many people so far?
that xhs app in japan. today morning
night
it was at 13 yesterday
I wonder how Hexbear is doing since i got banned from there
Its not great.
I really like Hexbear.
I agree that dunk culture has gone too far, but I wish the mod team there the best.
I really like hexbear too but the dunk culture struggle was just a symptom.
ranting
The admin team has been screwing things for months. Carcosa feels powerless to fix the problem to the point he tried to step down. Another one of the admins was banned for bullshit reasons. They banned a bunch of longtime users for bullshit reasons or even full on lies. I’m 99% sure there has been a takeover of the admin team by intentional wreckers.
Having lurked hexbear for a couple of months, the general… instability of the site led me to make a grad account instead
It seems that every few weeks the site explodes in drama
I would rather not lose a bunch of saved posts because an admin is having a bad day you know?Its not “bad mood” that is causing the banning. Using identity politics to break up leftists is a time honored tradition of anti-communists. (like the anti-Semitism smear of Corbin) That feels exactly like what has been going on at hexbear.
spoiler
A year ago there were 12 admin accounts in October there were only 4 of those admins and 11 new admin accounts. With that change came the increased instability and drama. The new admins ban people as “reactionary” and “bigots” without specific evidence just “history of” or in some cases they just lie about what someone is saying.
There has always been a simmering debate between whether hexbear is primarily a safe space for revolutionary leftists or a safe space for marginalized people. The 2 aren’t exclusive but one needs to take precedent over the other. (and all good communists know that revolution is the primary concern) Over the course of 2024 the admin team changed the balance radically.
The admin’s declaration that CEO killer luigi was a fascist because he shared reactionary posts on twiter was a clear sign that revolutionary class war had taken the back seat to making marginalized people feel safe. It was a decision made in emotional reaction not through materialist analysis and any pushback on that got people banned.
I’m creating an Internet forum, but I wonder if there is an “alternative” to Hexbear beyond Lemmygrad.
In the end, I’ll try to get others to join Lemmygrad over Hexbear, but it’s a pity that this happened.
I really dont know of any other social media platforms that are aggressively leftist.
Carcosa? Yeah, he always seemed rather powerless and just deferred to everyone around him.
Did Othello get banned?
I’m not sure. I didn’t see them around for quite a while.
dayum, i liked them
I’ve really been slacking off lately with /c/capitalismindecay. The main reason for that is that I have been focused on teaching myself Judezmo, which was easier for me to do from my smartphone than accessing writings on history was. I know that there is no ‘rule’ saying that I need to update that subcommunity daily, but I managed to keep at that for so long that I don’t want to disappoint somebody by taking another break despite having a working computer now.
Nothing wrong with taking a break if you need it. I think the work you’ve done on the community is admirable and wouldn’t hold it against you.
Are looters even a thing in the US or is it copaganda? I feel like its crazy that looters are a thing, its a sign the US is broken society.
They are, but it’s not exactly something I’d condemn. Most of the houses are going to burnt to a crisp. People who are the victims of it just trying to evacuate is one thing but 98% of it is happening in the areas that are directly in the path of the fire or already burnt down. Reminds me of that quote about pouring gasoline on the oranges from grapes of wrath.
Besides, when private property matters more than human life; destruction is a form of protest. One they sincerely hate.
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
