Probably either molly or alcohol. Though managing the booze a bit better lately. Molly I just wanna do like once a week even though I know I can’t. I know its awful, and I have other pleasures/hobbies, but I do seriously look forward to the next time every 2-3 months or so that I can just take a couple pills and go out and go wild for a bit at dancing at a club or rave or singing at a higher energy karaoke bars.

I know it’s kinda basic but either the Gurren Lagaan music or just a rewatch of the show/movie.

Never fails to shake me out of a stupor and remind me that no matter the obstacles life throws at you, there’s always a way forward, even if it might not be the way forward you initially wanted.

Revolutionary optimism before I knew what it was, haha.

Also that sometimes things can get so bad you gotta be a tiny bit illogical. 😅

If you like horror/psychological stuff, I recommend House of Leaves. It’s kind of a gimmicky book in that its style changes a lot and the story is all over the place (literally), but I kind of enjoy how it feels like you’re skimming and ripping out newspaper clippings like a madman and stapling them to the diary of a semi-deranged burnout drug addict with actual brain damage.

Certainly an experience.

I can’t help but be that annoying type of person who, when someone brings up 1984, has to immediately tell them about “We” and that Orwell was kind of cringe lol

I don’t like prudes either, and I do think it comes in part from certain kinds of morally compartmentalized people who are wound so tight from societal/religious/cultural pressures and envy of those who don’t feel as bound to such things that they need it to keep being some taboo thing for their own weird peace of mind.

Not sure if anyone said this yet but I do wonder sometimes if (widely available/freely accessible porn) is also about control/atomization. Having a socially disconnected populace that can only satisfy their innate sexual urges by some sort of supernormal stimuli viewed on a screen that the system can control is just another data point that can be exploited/behavior controlled.

The less real connections someone can make with real people who don’t conform to their supernormal standards, the less they might be able to form communities that can be self-sufficient (to a degree) or fight to change things in the real world. Being physically intimate with someone isnt just a way of sharing pleasure or expressing affection, it’s also one of several highly motivating factors for people to touch grass, which is where 99% of everything that matters actually happens.

Beyond the scope of the topic here, I suppose. Porn is just one avenue. I’m not against it, but there are plenty of reasons to revile the abusive industries that churn it out, and the proliferation of hollow AI porn bots that give people psychosis.

I also blame marketing research and of course, capitalism, for degrading everything they touch to soulless data points to be collated and directed by the whims of those with the power to do it.

I wish people like you cared enough to read more.

The USSR had pioneers in many fields, and was a global superpower.

If that means nothing to you then your opinion, alongside your brain-cell count, can be safely discarded.

That action is almost always better than reaction

Graduating from “leftist” Reddit, I’m afraid.

Gonna glaze the 'grad specifically - on the whole it’s done wonders for my revolutionary optimism and mental health, which in turn has lead to me actually doing some organizing irl.

Finding places full of people who actually know their shit and aren’t swept up into the lies of neoliberalism and capitalism is a major step up from feeling utterly alone and helpless in the imperial core surrounded by people who at times feel utterly alien and unreachable.

Basically just using this space to say thanks for existing, as well as thanks to such incredibly consistent and well-informed posters like yogthos, cfgaussian, cowbee, rainpizza and others for their constant analysis and discussions that have definitely patched up a lot of holes in my own understandings of leftist history and thought.

I barely use social media at all besides lemmy and the level of smarmy belligerence you’ve used throughout this thread makes me wanna download signal out of spite.

Maybe take a day off mang.

I have always appreciated their personal analysis as opposed to the rote application of other youtube scp channels. The difference between ideas and “ideas”.

If you don’t mind unsettling/horror/sci fi stuff, I recommend Exploring Series on YouTube. I find their voice just that right level of interesting enough to listen to the actual info if I want to, but calm enough to fall asleep to as well.

They have a few Lovecraft book readings as well, but I usually just binge the SCP Foundation recordings, haha.

Can’t wait for the other person to never respond again lol.

Keep up the good work comrade.

I agree mostly, but I think there is something to be said about the detachedness of it all though. Having you and your entire livelihood and ability to sustain your family/empire utterly insulated from the destruction your decisions cause, and in this day and age, even informationally insulated by simply either staying in bubbles or literally paying others to confront the criticism or negative effects you’d be hearing about.

When you willfully destroy any frame of reference that portrays what you’re doing as evil and destructive, or when the system you’re apart of is designed to facilitate that sort of mindset… I realize you mentioned similar points in your comment but I couldn’t help coming from a different direction.

I think that level of pure power and wealth does breed a type of ignorant sociopathy akin to a very young child picking the wings off of a butterfly, on a societal level (a simplification of course).

All this to say that while we don’t live in a fantasy land where money and power are cursed artifacts, I think it’s not helpful to cover for the effects such tools can have when a human being acquires both in nigh-untouchable quantities.

Edit: Not trying to cover for the horrible decisions these people make, and it’s true some people can just be cruel - just trying to float that they were and are human beings born into these systems just like everyone else.

Edit2: Goddamn it I typed all this out just to realize it’s a .world account and therefore they can’t see this. Neat. 😅

I think they’re experiencing a significant gravitas shortfall.

Politics?? In MY language conversation? Well, I never…

C’mon now.

Ah… right. Sometimes I forget how lemmy works.

Tell me you’ve never tried to look into actual communist history without telling me you’ve never tried to look into actual communist history…

So, basically, this person is happy to blind themselves to other viewpoints to avoid viewpoints they disagree with/people they claim are blind to other viewpoints.

… what an enlightened individual!

Does it really add decency??? One of my favourite shows, Arrested Development, uses bleeps over swear words as pure comedy; the black bars are similar to me, they draw attention to the oddity rather than just call it what it is.

Nudity in general is fuckin silly, people should know about their bodies, everyone knows what a naked human looks like from looking at themselves, censoring non-pornographic nudity is stupid and only serves to intrigue and create mystique where it should simply inform and demystify.