nemesis

I've been playing Viewfinder, which is a first-person puzzle game where you can pick up photos/drawings/etc and place them in the world so that you can walk into them. Not too far yet so I don't know if it'll evolve into such, but so far it gives mindbending puzzler vibes like Superliminal, Antichamber, or Manifold Garden.

Is that Kevin Costner?

Not a Russia expert by any means but this is how I understand the situation:

• The Eastern Orthodox Church gained influence after the fall of the USSR and used it to spread anti-LGBT sentiment
• Russian leadership are conservative reactionaries and the KPRF, the largest opposition party (and only nominally communist), is also quite reactionary
• Due to the way the US weaponizes the concept of human rights, being anti-queer is seen as being anti-imperialist in many countries outside the West, including Russia

I had another point that I forgot while I was typing this up because I'm trying to function on 3 hours sleep lol. If I remember it I'll update

Capitalists love to use floating signifiers to galvanize reactionaries of different stripes

Sorry gonna semi-hijack this thread to go off about tubal ligation (sterilization for someone with a uterus) in the US.

Although the ACA requires insurance plans to cover tubal ligation, 18 states allow providers to set their own policies and these policies can be used to prevent access. Specifically for white cis women, they will deny the procedure for being childless or having "only" one child, being unmarried (to a cis man), or being deemed too young. Even if they're married, doctors will sometimes demand their husband's approval. And even if none of these conditionals apply, the provider might add additional hurdles like needing a psychologist's approval. And of course, there's the "religious objection" card to be played at any time. 1 in 7 people in the US get care from a hospital aligned with the Catholic Church, so that's a lot of religious control over women's bodies.

Now if we're talking about BIPOC cis woman, especially those in poverty, incarceration, or other precarious situations, the system will trip over itself to find reasons to forcibly sterilize them. Also any woman who are disabled or have autism have no trouble whatsoever getting sterilized if they ask.

I wonder why there are so many barriers for white, allistic, able-bodied women to get sterilized and so easy to do for all other women. What a mystery.

Kill Hitler speedrun (any%)

Oh hey I made this

Yeah about that... I'm also from the US and poor and my partner is disabled. We've looked into emigrating to China, and unfortunately the chance of success is basically zero for your average person.

There are only a few ways to become a permanent resident of China (that I'm aware of):

1. Be the spouse of a Chinese national
2. Have permanent employment in China
3. Be a dependent of a Chinese citizen/perm. resident
4. Be an investor

Out of these, #1 is the most feasible for your average person. Of course, there could be a quite few ethical problems in this scenario depending on how it plays out.

#2 requires the person to be deemed highly-specialized and irreplaceable in their sponsored work visa job in order to be considered for permanent employment. These are usually tech, engineering, etc. Basically specialized jobs that are in demand in the US will likely also be in demand in China.

#3 doesn't apply.

For #4, I think the minimum investment is $500k USD. So that's a no go for most people.

And on top of this, you have to provide your medical record and I'm not sure how a disability would affect your ability to become a resident.

And of course, in all these cases, this only applies to you personally. I'm not sure if there is a feasible way for your grandparents to emigrate to China.

Also, most of this is pretty similar to most countries I've looked into so you'll continually run into the same problems. I've more or less resigned myself to my fate in this fascist shithole.

POV when today's the day you decided to join Lemmygrad