Your thoughts?

Only 22 minutes long.

I'm thinking of wordsmithing myself. I have an unfinished work that I just want to publish online.

Well, what do you all think of the video?

I agree especially with the point about analog and physical media.

You are welcome to contribute to it and make it better!

Capitalism

A Beginner’s guide to Neoliberalism and the Disposable Workforce

Glossary

Dark masses: Also known as peasant and working class, it is the primary fuel of your product, and it is stored on the bottom section of the income bracket. High concentration of impurity such as class consciousness can cause the machine’s rejection of the fuel, clogging the fuel system and causing foul sparks of strikes or protests.

Neoliberalism: A operating style that prioritises profit above all else—Streamlining society’s massive human productivity machine into maximise efficiency, squeezing out public welfare as needless bloatware.

Income Bracket: A tiered sorting mechanism for categorising fuel types (i.e. human units) based on monetary throughput. It ranges from low-yield combustibles (workers) to premium-grade extractors (elites), ensuring efficient stratification for optimal machine performance. Movement between brackets is theoretically possible but restricted by a built-in filter unit such as generational wealth lock to keep the ratio at the optimal amount.

⚠️WARNING: To reduce the risk of public descent leading to foul sparks, follow basic precautions, including the following:

Always: Try to be as subtle as possible during the assembly process. If you get caught, the dark masses will have a reason to mobilise and fight against you.

Do: Temporarily concede your policy if the public opinion is overwhelmingly against you, but take back control slowly after the outcry calms down.

Do: Try to neutralise any unions through legislation to limit their power, or attempt to hijack them, in order to interfere in its affairs, limit strikes, and weaken labourer’s political independence. They are a major threat during and after the assembly process.

Do Not: try to fight head on with the dark masses, using force undermines your legitimacy, and they outnumber you. When provoked directly, they are able, and will find a way to eventually overthrow you. Legally or not.

💡Required components

• Your elites
• Middle management (Educated progressive thinker hide among them)
• Office Jobs
• Labour class
• Marginalised Groups (Minorities, immigrants, people living in poverty)

*****The product consist of different components, each for a specific function, so make sure non is missing.

Introduction:

Hello new user!

You are reading this manual because you are now the proud owner of this country through election. Whether the election is fair is beside the point here.

On your way here, you have promised the dark masses the world, but you also must have promised many powerful people benefits to trade for your position here. They are now your elites, and their demands are always more important, since they are the one who can easily topple you. Then your promise to the dark masses must always come second.

This beginner’s manual will walk you through how to appeal to your elites, and what to do when the dark masses caught wind of your assembly process and decided to voice their concern in a protest.

Assembly:

We are in a capitalist society, this means money is everything – contrary to popular belief – as it CAN buy people happiness, a health body, and out of legal troubles if you know how to use it. Money IS Power. Therefore, your elites most likely have asked for monetary benefits from you. However, this is also the hardest one to implement, since money is transprent, and moving money out of national reserve into their pockets will be way too obvious. Here is how you can assemble this system subtly through economy manipulation using The neoliberal operating method.

1. Install the Tax Break Module™

• Locate the Upper-Income Bracket. This is the top segment of your economic population.
• Screw the Tax Breaks Module™ on the revenue pipeline of your elites’ cooperations. Ensure to display phrases like “job creations” and “investment incentives” to the dark masses for optimal public support.
• 💡Pro Tips: Tighten the bracket to the limit just before the light of public dissent warning starts to flash, for maximum trickle up effect.

2. Mount the Austerity Enforcement Unit™

• Align over sectors such as healthcare, education, and social services before installation. Activating the unit will begin phased budget cuts, remember to cite “budget discipline” or “eliminating waste” for public support.
• ⚠️Caution: Ensure cuts are deep but spread out over time to avoid sudden backlash.

3. Insert the Subsidy Injector

• Connect the injector to major industries own by your elites, such as fossil fuels, defence and large agribusiness
• Pump Generously in order to deliver subsidies and bailouts to your elites. Remember to label them as “strategic investments” to prevent public scrutiny.

4. Engage the Budget Deficit Amplifier Process

• Use tax cuts and spending imbalances to balloon the deficit.
• Attach the provided Public Messing Decal™ (“we must all tighten our belts”) to keep attention away from tax cuts and focus on slashing public programs instead.

Maintenance of the product

Now that we had established the methods which our elites will be able to gain their benefits from our government, it is time to keep public supportive for our policies.

1. Implement Popular Policies

• Now it is time to take actions on some of the changes that you promised the dark masses to keep you popular among them, they are less likely to rebel if you are actively benefiting them
• ⚠️Caution: When a popular agenda is inconsistent with the goal of benefiting the elites, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.

2. Power on the Concentration Module

• Locate the mainstream media distribution unit and ensure 5 ~ 6 mainstream media outlets are consolidated under a single corporate pipeline before heading down to the dark masses section.
• 💡Pro Tips: To verify, make sure whether the public thinks that they have a “choice” on what media outlet to believe.

3. Run the Alignment Protocol

• Wire our elites directly to political and corporate power nodes for message consistency.
• Make sure to frame them as “experts” and “independent verifications”

4. Set the public opinion to align with our agendas.

• Through our propaganda (media outlets) pipeline established in the last step, pump our Neoliberal ideas to the dark messes using positive wording such as “free markets” and “personal freedom”. To create the illusion of that you and your elites are operating the country on the best interest.
• 💡Pro Tips: Bonus Points if they successfully make the poor cheer for deregulation and tax cuts.

5. Separate Our current Education System into Different Modules

• Upgrade our current public education system to the new Curriculum Module, which only pass the necessary knowledge for an obedient worker to the children of the dark masses.
• Install a hidden education module near the Upper Income Bracket, which the children of our elites can acquire the real important skill of critical thinking and building useful connections.
• ⚠️ Caution: Ensure the industrial knowledge, innovation secrets, and financial system remain locked within bloodlines, boardrooms, or trust funds

6. Activate the Antivirus Scanner to closely monitor any signs of potential dissent.

• Monitor social media and surveil messages made by the educated progressive thinking people, make sure to also look out for signs of critical through, collective action, and censor any words that might galvanise the public. Sighting “preventing hate speech” and “protect the children”

Troubleshooting

In the case that a mass protest does break out, it is your job to keep the situation under control. Any actions you take can either make or break your control over the product. Follow the steps below to preserve functionality and maintain power integrity.

1. Symptom: Rising class consciousness.
   Diagnostic Code: PU6-RISE
   Solution:

• Reroute the media pipeline to redirect the blame from your elites' section towards other portions, such as marginalised groups or foreman nations.
• Activate Distraction Engine™ to increase entertainment and social media output, then embed our messaging into these entertainments before sending them through media pipeline.

2. Symptom: Mass protest or strike
   Diagnostic UPR-404

• Deploy Law enforcement cleaner system of our antivirus to forcefully unclog the fuel system.
• Attempt to dilute the impurity of the dark masses fuel by co-opting movement leaders.
• Offer minor reforms to appease the people, but avoid structural changes.
• ⚠️Caution: Always roll back your reforms in a slow paste to avoid further backlash

✅ System Restore Complete When:

• Public attention returns to celebrity feuds and productivity hacks
• Protest energy is diverted into midterm elections
• Movement slogans are repackaged by corporations in ad campaigns

Hindsight could have saved Hind's sight.

Blinded by the colonizer through erasure,

Distorted through a fisheye lens,

From the river to the sea.

-

But the lens isn't for Palestine to see.

And when the clock goes TikTok and the footage rolls in,

Of how Palestinians see and how the zionist tide rises,

The horror that becomes clear makes 2020 vision seem like nothing.

-

Four years ago is nothing for a people occupied for decades.

Four score and seven years ago, closer to a clearer picture.

When the fathers of colonialism brought forth, upon Palestine,

The Nakba.

-

It doesn't take glasses to understand,

That when genocide is at hand,

Every Hind's sight is threatened.

And when you turn a blind eye, the vision for humanity goes dark.

Every day I silently pray that my soul will return to me.

Buried beneath the colonizer's net,

Buried underground where even in silence,

Ear pressed to the ground,

I struggle to hear it.

-

Every day I silently wish,

That when I wake up, it will be with a kiss,

Of the rising sun

Of liberation's call.

-

And when I hug it back, I will know,

Through symphony of culture breathing free,

That I can walk with love

And listen to the beating heart

Of the laughter of children.

-

What does it mean to be free?

It is a taste I've never known.

Even as I walk in the open,

My soul lies underground, and my movements feel counterfeit.

My Kufiya gives me strength
My Kufiya keeps me warm
My Kufiya keeps me cool
My Kufiya helps me fight
My Kufiya shows my stance

My Kufiya is not for daily wear
I love my kufiya. 

We will have equality when we win
We will have freedom when we win
We will have safety when we win
We will have healing when we win
We will have justice when we win.

My Kufiya is not for daily wear
I love my kufiya. 

A Kufiya symbolizes freedom
A Kufiya symbolizes justice
A Kufiya symbolizes solidarity
A Kufiya symbolizes humanity
A Kufiya symbolizes resiliance

One day -- it had been perhaps months since I'd been travelling with the Orcs -- I saw Jebediah about to speak up, with the now familiar glint in his eyes as he looked at me, the glint I learned to recognize all too well in my time alongside him, that let me know he was going to make fun of me once more.

I cut him off. "And you - You're too proud, too conceited to accept that Elves may be good people too! You think you're better than me, but where has your revolution gotten you? You make grand speeches, sure, and you rally people, but what have you achieved? You speak of a time past, of your people lost, but worry about the present for once! You think I can't help you, you say you don't need me in the revolution, but you've achieved more with me at your side here in months than you've done in years by yourself!" I yelled out, right in front of him and the council.

Jebediah looked at me for a moment, but he showed no emotion. He endured my words. Then he breathed in, and for a moment I thought he might lunge at me for my transgressions. Instead, he calmly turned to one of his friends and motioned for him to bring forward his musket.

"Are you going to pick it up?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you want to prove you have our interests at heart, that this is your fight too, then pick up the musket and join us fully."

I looked at the weapon. It's not that I'd never handled a weapon -- I'd used a bow plenty of times before to hunt back in my homeland, but... a musket was a whole different thing.

Jebediah challenged my gaze.

"I thought not," he said. "You claim you want to help us, you say you are on our side, but when it comes down to what matters, you would never die for us. You will go back to your cozy life in the glades, while we sacrifice our own down in the ditches. And that is why I believe you, but I don't listen to you."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15320841

One of our comrades made a great essay and we have it available on Leftypedia. Come check it out!

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1752885

From the article:

1. There are a lot of stories already out there, but there can never be too many of YOUR stories out there.

2. Being unique isn’t about telling a story that has never been told, it is about telling a story from a perspective people can both relate to and learn from.

3. No one writes like you write. You may have a style inspired by other writers and stories you love, but there is only one you, and only one voice through which the stories you write are told.

4. If you are thinking about giving up because of something someone else did or said (or didn’t say or didn’t do), take some time to consider your choice. No one technically has the right to tell you which dream you can and cannot follow, and anyone who tries is just not nice.

5. One bad day is not enough of a reason to give up. Not two bad days or two bad weeks or two bad years, either. Life is rough, and it’s tough to handle. But that does not mean you have to stop writing — or that, if you do, your hiatus has to last forever.

6. Just because multiple people aren’t constantly praising you for your work does not mean you aren’t doing good work. Much of the work you will do as a writer will go unnoticed by the masses. This is the way of things. Keep doing good work.

---

(More of the article in the link up-top.)

My thoughts:

Tbh, I might give my writing a backseat.

I'm doing too many things as it is and I want to do less and just focus on what I want to do (and not what I feel I have to do).

Plus, what I excel at so far will pay dividends down the road; I don't know if I'm ready to write a novel or not.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1490209

Yes, it's the Mormon dude. I know, I know.

But I was recommended this by a communist friend in PSL who said I needed it and highly recommended it and said that, according to contacts he knew, he's... err, had misgivings about the faith (not sure if I should say it here).

I'm going to start these now and see if I find them useful. Wish me luck. Just need the advice, is all.

— I’m sad – Gilbert said.
— Hi Sad, I’m dad.
— No dad! I’m serious!
— Serious?! I thought you were Sad!

Gilbert frowned.

— What’s up, doc? – said dad, biting a non-existing carrot.
— I’m gonna miss you, dad.
— Why!? Am I going anywhere?

He had already gone. Dad laughed. Gilbert cried. Dad wasn’t being facetious. He wasn’t there anymore.

The doctor had been clear. Idiopathic Paternal-Onset Jocular Cognitive Erosion. The “Dad Joke Syndrome”.

Nobody knows the cause, but since the 1st case in 2028 it had spread to 30% of men over 60. The only known risk factor is being a father.

Critique and advice are welcome. ~1.2k words.

Chapter 1 - Freedom

"Hey! What are you doing here?", yelled one of the guards at the woman approaching the villa, home to his boss, who ran the local crime ring. "Stop right there!", exclaimed the other guard before grabbing his radio to inform his superior of what was going on. However, before his hand even reached it, and before he could perceive that the women suddenly stood right before him, he was already dead. The second guard tried to scream, but Flame killed him long before any noise escaped his throat.

She felt a little sorry for the two guards, they had roughly been in the age where they would have had children, maybe seven or eight years old. She hoped they didn't, but nothing would stop her on this mission. She had a hard time feeling sorry for people working for a human trafficking group, even when they didn't really have a choice. This to some extent had been the reason she was selected for this job, she only cared about her people's code of honour, and that made her prioritise stopping the crimes these people where committing over the harm she did to their families and friends. It was a bit cruel, but many things in this world where. The way many people treated her kind was far more cruel than this.

And so she continued her work, dispatching the remaining guards outside, and made her way inside. "Heh, you still think you can kill me?" she jokingly asked the squad of guards that was blocking the hallway. The guards shivered in fear at the view of Flame, a person standing at well over two meters tall, with the ears of a wolf, fuzzy long grey hair that became white towards the tips, carrying a long sword stained with fresh blood, and wearing a uniform splattered with blood stains, some new, some old. She was a truly fearful presence, striking her enemies with fear just as much as she did with her blade. "Open fire!", yelled the oldest of the guards, a man that feared little in this world, but now he knew that these were his last moments. The few bullets that were fired failed to harm, simply unable to penetrate her skin, if they hit her to begin with. In the very same second she slashed her sword through the group of enemies, killing them all. As their corpses fell to the ground, they revealed a girl, maybe 19, that had been standing behind them for a just a few seconds. She had many similarities with Flame, she too had the ears of a wolf and she too had a wolfs tail, she too had long fuzzy hair, though hers was black. Her eyes too where a bit odd, the colour different from the colours humans had.

"Kill her!", commanded a man standing at the end of the corridor, and the girl attempted what she had been ordered to do. As she started to run towards Flame, she took up her sword, readying to strike. Flame took up her sword, this time in a defensive position. Her sword was a beautifully crafted blade, reflecting and scattering the light shining on through a window above it. The girls sword was far less impressive, it was a rusty, half broken dagger. She knew her sword would probably shatter when it hit Flames sword, but she took her chance.

She didn't really know why she did it, she had never wanted to work for these people. They had picked her up on the streets of the nearby city, where her parents had abandoned her. They didn't want to raise a child that wasn't quite human by their standards. A common fate for those like her, Flame herself suffered a similar fate in her youth. Serving these people was an insult to her honour, an insult to her self and to all of her people. She hated herself for this, but she didn't think she could stop either. If she didn't kill her, the other guards would kill the woman, and than probably her as well. She knew it was the right and honourable thing to do, yet she was to afraid to do it. She was scared of the future, and her past, the woman in front of her, the man behind her and her own wrongdoing. Yet she raced to wards the woman, aiming her sword as well as she could, and a mere second later she struck her opponents sword. Her weapon shattered into a cloud of metal fragments, one hitting her face, leaving a deep wound over her left eye, almost taking her eyesight. She fell on her back, hitting her head on the ground causing her fall unconscious for a couple of seconds. "You better lay there until i come back to get you." said Flame, visibly not impressed by the girls decision. She then walked around the girl, and then dealt with the remaining guards and their boss. A task that took her just as little time as getting to this point in the first place, and only a few minutes later she returned.

"Get up and follow me.", said Flame, the young girl only answered in silence. She had broken the code of honour, she had let other people use her power for bad, she had not taken her chances to flee, she had even attacked someone who was freeing her. She didn't have honour or pride, she didn't really have a name, as her parents never bothered to give her one, and those that enslaved her where content in using slurs to refer to her. And without her honour. She knew that what she did was not irredeemable, and that she could clear her self, that she could regain her honour, friends and find a mentor to teach her. But she didn't think she ever would. It was possible, but would anyone let her? Could she do even do it? She didn't know, the only thing she could do was follow the woman who had freed her. After a while of walking she started talking: "Whats your name?" "Flame." "That's a really nice name." "What's yours?" The young girl paused for a minute: "I don't have one."

The wound above her eye was still bleeding. "We'll need to do something about that...", said Flame with a rather concerned tone in her voice. "Helena should be with the extraction team, she'll fix you up a little." She was sincerely worried about the young girls health, being blind on one eye really wasn't a problem she needed on top of all the ones she already had.

They soon after reached the extraction point, Helena and the rest of the team already waiting for them. "Who's that girl?", asked Helena. "I met her in the villa, she's one of my kind, so i will take her with me." "What's her name than?", Flame didn't answer for a second, and then replied: "Doesn't have one. Can you fix her eye?" "Of course!" Helena grabbed her first aid kit, got up and started to do her work: "This might hurt a little... You eye should be fine, but that will leave a scar."

So, hey, guys, it’s me, commiespammer

I think you all deserve a sort of, you know, ironic but also not ironic explanation of my political views.

Or, you know, maybe you’re just here for a funny song. I hope this is funny. It’s probably not.

Being irony poisoned is probably outdated now. But regardless—

/

So, I think I owe you guys a bit of an explanation

And I figured I could write a song, since I’m big on procrastination.

What are my unironic views? Have you ever wondered at all?

Am I really an ML? Am I on the left at all?

/

The truth is that I’m a centrist of sorts

I’m a communo-normie, in internet words.

Just an overton window shifted much to the left

I like basic ideals like hating wage theft.

/

Yeah, I support AES, sure, but I haven’t read much.

Maybe a few short articles like On Authority and such.

I’ve got Beyond Pink and Blue downloaded in my files

I could figure out how to open EPUBs but I’m too lazy to go the extra mile.

/

When I struggle session happens I watch from the sidelines

I’m too much of a coward to take sides, every time

What if the side I support’s really shit?

My aesthetic-leftist ego couldn’t take a bigger hit

/

Why jump into a conflict and risk being wrong?

When I could pretend like I supported the winners all along?

A centrist point of view may be infuriating to some

But I’ll just go deeper into my irony-shell to ignore what I’ve become

/

I’m not oppressed at all, I’m privileged as a leech

I’m drowning out actual concerns with my indifferent speech

I’m a self-deprecating irony poisoned piece of shit

And I’m too removed to do self crit

/

(Except as sarcastic, vaguely written slop)

/

So, have your views on me changed?

Do you now think that I’m insane?

I hate how I lack humility

Just a communo-normie🎵

/

Ha ha, I’d better log off for a few days and read a book or something!

In an alternate history work of fiction, what would be a good way to rationalize/justify a world in which there is no usage of fossil fuels?

I think in this alternate history / worldbuilding idea, the physical matter still exists - there is coal, oil, etc, in the earth, but I am wondering if we can come up with a satisfying reason why humans could not make use of anything more efficient than peat in production. Is there a scientific-sounding explanation that could be given to make a world in which coal and oil are useless in industry?

I have been reading "The Future is Degrowth" and "The Origin of Capitalism" and that is what inspired this. The first book says something along the lines of "the capitalism we know, of endless accumulation, is fundamentally a fossil capitalism". The second book makes a very convincing case that what existed in England centuries before fossil fuels was already distinctly (agrarian) capitalist. Interest in everyone's thoughts and ideas about how this could be constructed, and what sort of events could play it out in the cradle of capitalism but also worldwide.

Join my writing Discord.

Must state whether you want to join or not; I won't just leave the invite link out for anyone to join.

kthnxbai