Welcome again to everybody. Make yourselves at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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Honestly as of this year I’ve gone very much from “my mom did her best” to “my mom could’ve done better” to “wait is x not normal” to “I hate my mom.”
I know I shouldn’t say that, we’re family and she was a single mom taking care of me in a dysfunctional family. But it’s the hypocrisy mostly, like how she constantly complained that everyone lacks empathy for her but never gave me any empathy for the things she did while drunk, or for emotionally abusing/exploiting me, or constantly guilt tripping me, or the fact that I said I was scared of her during one of her outbursts and she said she should be scared of me.
Gods, it’s just…I don’t like her. I honestly wish I could’ve had a normal person see the way she treated me behind closed doors.
It’s wierd because it got worse as I got older. Somehow the kid who was screaming and tantrumming was treated nicer than the one that was obedient, pliable, and an emotional punching bag.
Have a great week, everyone! There’s lots of work to be done for our movement, but we can’t do it alone. Finding comrades in real life is immensely rewarding!
As always, communism will win.
I’M FUCKING COOKED I’M FUCKING WASHED IT’S SO FUCKING OVER I WENT TO WORK ON LABOR DAY WHEN WORK IS CLOSED I SPENT $16 ON AN UBER FOR NOTHING AAAHHHHHH
Also: 🫵 You WILL have hope, comrade.
No…
We WILL have hope (including YOU), comrade. 🫵
❤️
I think I sent a message to you earlier, follow up on that, comrade
Apologies, I’m back on intensive PT and home exercise daily, in addition to my normal responsibilities, I saw your cheerie “Hi” and hope you are well. Please feel free to write, but I will have to catch up as I can. xx❤️
I understand, will talk soon!
❤️
“labor day”
Time to take advantage of the sales on AliExpress while I still can.
Also on a related note, Amazon sales are a scam; a sleeping earbud on AliExpress will be just $1.50 USD but on Amazon, the sleeping earbuds will be – what? – maybe $30 or even $40? Smdh… I am not even bothering to check the price for them now on Amazon, just saying.
a lot of stuff on amazon is available directly on aliexpress/temu for less than half the price
as in the exact same thing from the exact same brand
the one downside is the shipping takes longer
Annoyingly Aliexpress now adds customs fees on to my orders automatically so the price is getting close to Amazon on some products. I have never needed to pay customs for an Aliexpress order until now, either via the seller up front or on delivery.
“The shipping takes longer”
I am aware of this already but, frankly, Amazon taking two days to ship you something sucks when it comes at the price of both exorbitant costs and even a lack of variety, tbh.
very true
tbf, it’s more likely for communists to fuck that up as we celebrate “labor day” on the correct date
I legit thought that Labor Day in the United States was Sept. 1 where as May Day around the world is, well, May 1st.
tbh i don’t remember the correct date for labor day either; i just have a shitty memory + nobody was talking about monday being labor day on friday so that didn’t help
do you like card games?
game design for card games is fascinating.
I made a card game with some help from friends. Its called “cards with rules.”
Everyone gets the same number of cards (dealer decides)
The remainder of the deck is placed in the middle and the top card is laid face up that number is the “rule card.”
Anyone who plays that number gets to make up a rule. (it has to be a fair rule not like “I win”) the majority can decide a rule is not fair but they have to dispute the rule based off fairness not just because they don’t like it. ( So “i get to play 2 cards next turn” could be disputed, but “Everyone gets to play 2 cards next turn” would be fine or “if you play a 7 you can play any other card” )
some classic rules: if you have to pick up cards you have to pick up 3, or if you play a 7 skip the next person’s turn, or if you play a face card you can place any card, you can play all the cards of the same number as long as the first one matches suit, If you play a face card you have to drink, If you say any word starting with the letter S you have to pick up 2 cards, all the rules are gone
You play any number or suit that matches the last card played, If you cannot play you pick up one from the deck. If the deck runs out the face up cards (except the last one played) are shuffled.
Rules must be enforced before the next person plays. trying to dodge a rule is fair play.
The first person out of cards wins.this feels like Calvinball: the card game.
Yeah it is highly variable. some times one hand will go for an hour other times you’ll play 4 hands in 20 minutes.
I wanna make a board game one day.
Dead-ass.
Oh, that, and maybe a TTRPG as well.
Idk.
I’m obsessed with mtg and really want to make a deckbuilder tcg based on nature and the animal kingdom
Oh, I haven’t played MTG. I should at least get the app on mobile.
Are there any other TCGs out there? I only ever hear about MTG and I guess the TCG that Yu-Gi-Oh is based off of (oh, and I guess Pokémon).
MtG: Arena is a freemium game so you can play it without paying anything, you just have to grind a lot lol.
The Big 3 are MtG, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon. There’s the Disney one, Lorcana, which I’ve heard is decent. And Flesh and Blood. Haven’t played either. But if you want a low-commitment tcg experience you should play Inscryption, that game is a blast and like 25 bucks, no micro-transactions or anything.
I don’t necessarily mind grinding a lot. It can even be used as a “stim” to help me get through boring things or even boring or not-as-exciting parts of video games.
Dunno if it can exactly be used as an “incremental” or “idle” game but eh I can try it out either way to see if I like it.
Testing your homemade decks on the (admittedly far too easy) AI player on a second monitor while doing other stuff can fulfill the purpose you’re describing.
Also they just unionized and I can already observe the improvements to the game (don’t ask me how good the union actually is, I haven’t done that research yet).
There’s also Balatro. I haven’t played it yet but it seems fun.
Balatro is AWESOME. Genuinely so addictive and refreshing. To many, the steamdeck is just The Balatro Machine lol
Cool. I was trying to choose between Noita and Balatro. I think I’ll buy Balatro.
I’ve sunk way too many hours into RNG games like rogue-likes. Gambling is too effective for engagement lol.
I have it on mobile.
I don’t think there is any difference between the mobile version and the one you play on Steam.
looked into Yu Gi Oh, it had OTKs. and at that time I was in japan and english versions of cards were hard to get, and didn’t wanna play online. MTG looked cool or even hearthstone, but I recently bought The Bazaar it’s kinda autobattler deck building, stunning visuals, you should check it
i wanna get into MTG but it always overwhelmed me, and am getting into more reading lately. i get dopamine hit when i finish a chonky book with a satisfying ending
Trying to get back into fantasy novels.
I need fun.
You should try Baru Cormorant, it’s a fantasy thriller with heavy economic elements. I’m like a quarter of the way through and really digging it. It’s basically about this young woman who is tasked by the empire to audit one of it’s corrupt colonies.
Was just looking at that book. Thanks for the rec.
You should also try “The Culture” scifi series. Start with “Player of Games” and immediately jump into “Use of Weapons”.
Use of weapons is one of my top 5 books of all time.
Does it deal with class?
The problem with A Song of Ice and Fire is that nearly all the main characters are nobles or born nobles.
It’s annoying. I don’t think I like ASOIAF anymore. Partly, it’s due to the Orientalism and other racist depictions of the analogues of real-life cultures (since it clearly has analogues inspired by such cultures). The depictions of certain characters, especially female characters, is something I don’t like as well. The setting is even a bit reformist, in a sense; yes, the nobles clearly oppress the commoners but certain characters of noble lineage are essentially the only ones trying to change things. There is no agency with regards to the commoners within the setting or barely any at all.
The worst part is that the fanbase will harangue GRRM for certain things but not for the transphobia displayed in the setting (such as in Book 5 in particular), never mind the sexual assault within the series as well (by other main or sympathetic characters, mind you, at least in the case of Tyrion in Book 5 around the mid-point of the novel). Good grief, the fanbase is literally quite transphobic as well, at least in the case of Westeros.org Forums (the two people that mainly started the site are friends of GRRM and are in contact with him; they also are quite explicitly transphobic and many queer and trans folks have been banned from that forum).
When I read the series, particularly the second novel, A Clash of Kings, it was a bit of a revelation seeing an Autistic rep character in the setting (Stannis Baratheon in this case) but, honestly, he will likely do something stupid or bad or evil or whatever and then he will probably die tragically or painfully in the end, idk. I don’t think I care now.
Honestly, it sucks that Autistic characters are written by allistics most of the time within the sphere of speculative fiction. I don’t mind input from allistics sometimes, I think it’s okay for them to write outside the allistic point-of-view, but there do not seem to be many good Autistic reps within fiction nowadays. Brandon Sanderson’s depiction of Autistic folks is atrocious, imho (don’t even get me started on the enby or non-binary folks within his main setting of stories).
I want good fantasy (though obviously not just fantasy). I even got a well-received fantasy novel but left it at home before I left for Zaragoza (might get somebody to send it here). I just don’t know what to read in terms of novels now.
MtG is vast and the jargon alone can be pretty confusing (I still don’t know it all and can’t recognize a lot of cards that experts name drop). What I reccomend to newer players is to find a legendary card that speaks to them and build a deck around that using online tools like EDHRec and EDHWiki which can directly tell you the best combos and cards that synergize well with it. If you like greek mythology for example you could start with the Theros sets which are inspired by greek myth. There are also tons of pre-constructed decks which you can upgrade and experiment with which is basically how I learned to make decks from scratch. It’s thankfully never been easier to play the game with comrades totally for free using Moxfield and screensharing; you can theoretically use any card ever printed (including the infamous One Ring printing) and use Spelltable to host the game.
Your idea sounds interesting, would the game be based on creating an ecosystem?
I’m not sure yet because I enjoy the combat aspect of mtg and other tcgs, but it’s a sound idea to make the Win Condition dependent on creating the greatest amount of biodiversity. The idea I had is to have land cards (to borrow an mtg concept) and then build on top of that up the food chain. So for example your deck could be a Lake meta deck and begin with algae on turn 1 and work up to birds of prey or something.
Maybe you could direct your organisms to prey on other organisms of your opponent to interfere with them getting that wincon?? Still not sure.
One thing is for sure, I would want this to be a game where you have your deck and that’s basically all you need. Wingspan is very cool and fun but it’s definitely a board game; there’s tons of things beyond the cards you need to physically play.
Gonna do some science as a vegan, sober person working a physical job. Trying to eat healthy and stuff. I wanna see how big you can get just by working and eating right. Aspiring to get a Soviet worker propaganda physique.
“The legumes whisper his name in fear.”
I eat legumes in honor of George Washington Carver.
I still want to go vegan here in Spain.
I hope you all have a nice week :D
You too comrade!
You too! ( ˶ ❛ ꁞ ❛ ˶ )
You too!
You too!
You too! :D
And I failed installing Linux. Won’t boot past the Grub screen.
My Lenovo Yoga i7 did NOT allow me to actually install Linux and I ended up locking myself out.
Had to go to BestBuy just to get it unlocked again. ;_;
SAAAAAME
we’ve all been there it’s like a trial, time to plug the maintenance USB drive and fix the grub install.
Yeah, I’ll spend more time on it when I get more free time.
I dreamed someone was riding a log down a flooded river for fun with my kitten that was murdered, so that when the log rolled I lost her again. Very weird dream, but I had seen her pictures a day or so before and felt bittersweet, so I guess it makes sense.
My dreams sometimes are trying address something in my life, but for me it is usually to the point of being somewhat obvious. However, I have a headache everyday, so I always forget about it anyway.
Real “I think but then I forget” energy here (I have it too lol)
I’m sorry that happens to you, and yes, this was very honest and straight to the point, which I appreciated, believe it or not.
The football team I support played Shaktar Donetsk tonight. It was surprising to see that they filled the entire 1600 persons away section despite their fans being either at war or scattered across Europe.
It was less surprising to see Azov banners.
What solar farm complex is that?
Vietnam?
China?
Very mountainous so I assume either of those two.
I’m so broke I had to cancel my gym membership, which is €45 a month. But tbf I never went although that was also because signing up for classes also cost money
Update: I have a job interview next week, luckily. But even if I get it, I don’t know if I’ll get a new membership
Good luck. Maybe just do some research on work outs you can do at home.
Best of luck with the job interview mate.
Good luck with the interview
Thank you
45 euro a month is criminally expensive anyway. Try to look into working out outdoors.
You might be able to get a discount through your health insurance. Not every one does it but some have partnerships with gyms.
Good idea. I’ll check
The windows 10/11 comparison page is funny. They have a thing that compares features and one of the standout features they have for windows 11 compared to 10 is “Smart App Control provides a layer of security by only permitting apps with good reputations to be installed on your Windows 11 PC.”
That is not a benefit unless I am, like… an elderly person whose mind is going and needs to be kept safe from myself. For most people, this is “you’re too stupid to understand tech, we’ll decide for you.” It’s infantilization at best, but more likely malicious matter of capitalist control. Fuck windows.
I had a day out with my partner some days ago, it was nice. Although we’re still figuring our relationship out, I can definitely say life feels a little more manageable since it started.
🥂
Me too.
I think I got scared yesterday and somewhat this morning because my life started to feel like my life in Virginia.
Context:
There is literally a concert outside my window.
I can’t sleep.
I didn’t even sleep any hours last night.
I have been getting 3 to 4 to 5 hours in total each night for the past eight or so days.
I hope I will be alright.
I am getting irritable and getting those “dark ruminations” again. I am trying to persevere.
Luckily, I do have to say:
The psychiatrist in Spain here that I am seeing seems much more warm and invested in my well-being than any psychiatrist I ever saw in the United States (I have at about six over the course of my life). I know that Spain “isn’t perfect” and has “its problems” but think, if this psychiatrist is better than the ones I saw in Virginia, then I will definitely accept the W there. Gotta count my blessings. Just because there are problems doesn’t mean you can’t take stock of what’s working.
Im suffering sleep issues too, and a lot is my own fault. Im struggling to get back into what feels like a punitive regime to my inner feral child, but know it’s necessary for proper physical healing. Which all translates to doing the inner work. Not fun. But I know im worth it.
Can you catch naps during the day?
❤️🫂
🫂
Insomnia is the worst. I’m also in the 3-4 hours of sleep per night zone at the moment, and gotta power through a bit more until I can see my psychiatrist next week. Hope things work out for you soon and you manage to break out of the loop, sleep deprivation makes everything so much more miserable.
The bright side is that once you manage to get some quality rest, the mental health effects are immediately obvious. I try to remind myself of this when I catch myself ruminating - my brain is scrambled from exhaustion and it will get better.
My new psychiatrist here specializes in insomnia and sleep.
In my particular case, there is literally a concert across my apartment window.
I can close the blinds all the way, but I can’t really escape the noise.
Today I learned that the Ukrainian alphabet was standardized in the Soviet Union during Ukrainisation. Another L for those who claim that Soviets oppressed Ukrainians
Ukraine deserves to be an SSR.
The Ukrainian people deserve to have an SSR again and be free from Nazis and other fascists.
In the communist stage, how would inherently high demand but finite things be distributed? For instance, concert tickets for a popular music artist? Sure maybe fans arent so culty under communism than capitalism, but there will still probably be a higher demand for seats than there is supply. Would it just be first come first serve?
Imagine explaining the music situation of today to a Russian peasant in 1926. Telling them that 75% of the world can watch a performance as it happens on the other side of the world. Or that a small thing the size of their pinky finger nail could hold enough music to go for almost 2 years.
Now think about how much of that change has happened in the last 30 years. What the music situation will be like in another 100 years is likely inconceivable.
Leisure activities should remain in a to each according their contributions basis. Imo high achievers should have a priority, tickets for the kid with better grades, for the volunteers at the local red cross, for the construction worker that had an extra shift or got injured, etc…
Is there anything further you could expand on or have some more get support on this poiny?
This just sounds like ‘money’ with a different face, and those that can’t contribute will be penalised. This is where I get stuck with any ‘contribution’ system, as it will involve an ever more complicated system of totalling and tallying and tokens and cheques and so on. If we still are left with a wage system, we’ve failed.
Money system is not inherently bad, the way i see it. It’s only terrible as of now because it’s not proportional to one contribution to society, if carefully revised it could turn into a very good tool for resource distribution.
I am all for everyone getting their basic needs met without having to contribute anything, the collective work of all society should subsidize it, however we are talking about luxurious commodoties, like a concert, there i do not agree everyone should have access to it.
On another point, some degree of extraction of surplus value has to remain in order for society to further progress forward. If everyone took exactly or more than what they contribute how is society going to grow?
I think art, theatre, music are necessaries, once stability is assured. Maybe a percentage of tickets could be free and lotto, with winners being ineligible for a period of time. I guess it could be in blocks of pairs, for couples, fours, to allow for families?
Thats where I was hoping you can expand, comrade! If we still rely on the wage system, where others are paid more for their contribution beyond the common needs of others to pay for luxuries then I don’t know how revolutionary the future’s day to day will be. I struggle to see if the money-wage system is still in place how different it would be from today. The then joyful task of tallying and monitoring and weighing and counting and judging the individual contributions of all at scale with I expect the office to do all this work (and then enforcing and punishing and shaming?) then we are not really too far away from how the world works today. But the challenge of reward or punishment to work is a difficult one, so that’s where I’d love if people can give some insights, as my view is very pessimistic in that for of labor relations.
Today, festivals are luxurious, expensive, and artificially constrained to extract the most amount of capital for the least amount of effort. The idea then is to maintain a fine line from extractive food-drink prices, entry-stay fees, artist-lineup attractiveness, and to make as much profit and maintain as much of a reputation to do it all again. In a communist society, extracting money for profit is not the goal, and the luxurious nature of organising cultural events for society should be seen differently. We’re quite biased to the monopolies of festivals today and need to lean much more towards something like Aste Nagusia in Euskal Herria (basque country), you’ll love its revolutionary character.
The “extraction of surplus-value” is a, if not the, defining characteristic of capitalism, and a eureka moment in Marxist theory. I am interested in then how this productive force use converted into surplus ‘value’ - meaning working beyond the needs of society and our collective plan for the betterment of society to grow. It feels distinctly ‘line must go up’ so any material you have to help me there would be helpful!
Distribution by lottery or queue? Or maybe just focus on more pro-social events like more smaller or local bands and not just industry allstars. Or maybe something like holograms to have multiple venues? I know at really big events there might be several screens or speakers already now
Hmmm
The later communist stages are stuff we can’t imagine.
Frankly, society and culture would turn to different matters entirely.
Stuff we can’t really imagine, tbh.
Some artists actually respect their fans (I think Keith Urban is one, I’m not into country but I heard a thing) and add dates in cities where shows sell out until an added show doesn’t sell out.
