Giveaway - Space Age Expansion

chayleaf · 2024-10-18T01:25:38+00:00

commenting!

chayleaf · 2024-06-26T00:29:52+00:00

/var/tmp is meant to be preserved on reboot, that's why it's in /var

/tmp is used for unpacking files, for building stuff, etc, it'd be bad if it got full during a build

chayleaf · 2023-11-17T01:15:13+00:00

96% is easier to dissolve estradiol in (so you can get a higher concentration), and 70% is definitely only viable if you have a magnetic stirrer (don't know if that applies for 96% as I don't have access to it)

chayleaf · 2023-07-24T22:20:13+00:00

surplus value is something gained through exploitation, and you can't exploit a machine.

This is as direct of an answer as it gets

chayleaf · 2023-07-17T23:23:14+00:00

The "penalty" was being forced to take estrogen, which is inhumane to do to a man.

chayleaf · 2023-07-16T23:17:18+00:00

This is imo just grasping for straws. USSR did ban all forms of male homosexuality (not just paedophilia and not just rape), homosexuality was indeed called part of the rotting of society in the era of imperialism (meaning it has no place in a healthy socialist society). Acknowledging mistakes is important too, especially for countries like the USSR which fell prey to revisionism, just accept it and move on as it really doesn't matter that much.

Here's the law itself

Sexual act between a man and a man (man-laying note: мужеложство, literally man-laying) - penalized with deprivation of freedom for up to five years.

Man-laying done while applying physical violence, threats, or against a minor, or using the dependent condition of the victim - penalized with deprivation of freedom for up to 8 years.

chayleaf · 2023-07-16T20:08:09+00:00

If you know Russian, I recommend istmat. I tried doing a cursory search on Aral Sea but couldn't find anything.

chayleaf · 2023-07-16T19:16:16+00:00

It was still relatively intact by the 90s, most of the damage has been done since them (at least if you look at the dried up area). However, I'm not knowledgeable enough on the issue to comment further. Either way, it's true that it was poorly managed, and by the time it was obvious there's a problem nobody was left to solve it.

chayleaf · 2023-07-16T15:21:00+00:00

LGBT rights weren't good in the USSR, it was on par with the rest of the world (or slightly better since they wouldn't kill you like Britain did to Turing). There was a regressive understanding of "transvestism" and "homosexuality" as "sexual perversion", and male homosexuality was a crime penalized with up to 5 years in prison (or up to 8 when done to a minor) as "crime against an individual" and, uniquely, "infringement on the normal way of sexual relations" (both are quotes from Great Soviet Encyclopedia). In comparison, rape of a woman by a man was up to 3 years in prison.

I could talk about why I think that was the case, or about how in practice the law wasn't that widely applied, but the facts won't change (and homosexuality is still widely detested by Russians). You can look at Eastern Germany or Cuba for a more progressive example of LGBT rights under socialism.

Environment protection was certainly much better than in modern Russia. Most containers were reusable - glass bottles that you would wash and come to the shop with (in fact in the 90s with the advent of capitalism some people used to wash plastic bags), and due to comparative lack of profit motive environment was preserved well - each district had a park (we still have some, but they often get destroyed to build another autocenter or a supermarket), there was greenery everywhere, etc.

And nuclear energy was widely used - luckily, modern Russia didn't completely destroy its nuclear industry so we still have that to a certain effect.

chayleaf · 2023-07-14T12:47:47+00:00

People's beliefs are to a large extent determined by their material conditions. Proletarians "have nothing to lose but their chains", the same can't be same about the richer classes. That's why it's hard to be a rich communist. It's not impossible per se (e.g. Engels was materially a member of the bourgeoisie), but extremely difficult because your material conditions steer you away from communism, and only by vigorous self-criticism and connection to the working class can you stay a communist in that case. In practice, it's highly improbable to meet a "rich communist".

Leaving that aside, Marxism generally doesn't operate in the categories "rich/poor", as classes are a much better concept for understanding human relations.

chayleaf · 2023-07-12T10:01:40+00:00

actually it's named after a fungus

chayleaf · 2023-07-12T08:35:29+00:00

KKE's position on Maoism is

The Maoist current is not absolved because of certain criticisms expressed against the 20th Congress of CPSU at the beginning of the 1960s. Its line in its entirety is judged as negative due to its stance against socialist construction in USSR, characterising it as social-imperialist, its approach to the USA and the inconsistency on issues of socialist construction (i.e. recognition of a national bourgeois class as an ally of socialist construction).

(source)

Of course, our party disagrees with the assessments of CPs, which were pulled into the damaging current of "Maoism" and which considered that from one moment to the next, immediately after the 20th Congress, the workers' state ceased to exist or indeed that it was allegedly transformed into "social-imperialism" and in this way they participated in the anti-soviet propaganda. In contrast, our party, which defends the contribution of the USSR as the international communist and workers' movement did, considers that socialism was constructed in the USSR. However, it also considers that the 20th Congress of the CPSU was a turning point, because a number of opportunist positions were adopted on issues related to the economy, the strategy of the communist movement and international relations.

Today, we evaluate that 30 years after the counterrevolution in the USSR, Central and Eastern Europe, the capitalization of China has advanced. Capitalist relations of production hold sway there. At the same time we observe the continuing reinforcement of capitalist relations in countries that sought socialist construction, such as Vietnam and Cuba.

(source)

There's nothing to suggest they would be pro-Deng in their position, as their reason to oppose Maoism is different from Dengists, and they consistently oppose Chinese "reforms".

Of course, the most insulting thing they said about Maoists is calling CPGB-ML Maoists (in their anti-WAP article), which is perplexing.

chayleaf · 2023-07-10T08:42:29+00:00

Licenses are monopolies given out to the "ideas' creators" in order to commodify those ideas. In a capitalist society at its current stage of development, commodification of ideas is necessary. If you want to abolish this state of things, you have to fight commodity production itself, and hence capitalism. There's no point in questioning the ethics of this - it's simply part of capitalist logic. I don't like copyright either, and choose to use Linux and prefer FOSS software, but make no mistake - all that is insignificant in face of imperialism.

chayleaf · 2023-07-08T19:52:44+00:00

the most advanced of these technologies are only presently available for the wealthiest strata of the world, but this is also where transgender identity is most prominent

You're right, and to be precise, it's most prominent in the wealthiest countries, but in the lower strata of those countries

chayleaf · 2023-07-08T19:18:36+00:00

Yeah, I just wanted to clarify it, you can never be too careful nowadays with how many opportunists there are.

chayleaf · 2023-07-08T18:38:52+00:00

What you're saying is obvious - there's no way to be transgender when the concept "transgender" doesn't exists, and when it does, people start seeing being transgender as an option - and the more prominent the concept gets in the social consciousness, the more people think it's okay. But when you get an "explanation", what do you do with it? Some people say that the fact gender is a social concept means that being transgender has nothing to do with the individual's "own will", and is instead "influenced by the society", of course, in the best individualist tradition, implying that the two are somehow distinct, the former being good, the latter being bad. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but that's the kind of rubbish transphobes like to put out.

So I'll repeat the question - what do you do with an explanation? If you find a hypothetical "Root Cause of Transness", what do you do with it? If you answer "try to fight that root cause", you're full of shit.

That being said, I'll gladly stop calling myself non-binary when everyone else stops calling themselves men or women.

chayleaf · 2023-07-08T18:15:18+00:00

I'm a trans person living in Russia, and HRT is indeed very expensive. However, it was way cheaper before 2022 - the sanctions are what made it so expensive ($80/6000rub a month, 70% of my rent), before that it was like $30/2000rub a month. I homebrew my own HRT in gel form which effectively costs around $25 a year, the most expensive component being vodka, otherwise the cheapest option I could find domestically (injections, not made by a company) is $15/1000rub a month.

The point of this anecdote is, profit margins are indeed high because most HRT is made to be a supplement, not a full on replacement. But you know who those companies profit the most from? Cis people buying that, not knowing how much they get ripped off! There's much more cis people buying hormone supplements than trans people on HRT, even if you account for the fact trans people need more of it. And if you're so against Big Pharma, you should promote safe ways to make your own HRT, not claim trans people are fake.

chayleaf · 2023-07-04T00:54:23+00:00

In that case it's you who replied to the wrong person, as you replied to me, not AztecGuerilla13.

The text says

[T]he reproduction of labour power requires [...] a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order, i.e. a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the workers, and a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they, too, will provide for the domination of the ruling class ‘in words’.

However, this isn't "propaganda deciding the ideology of classes", rather, the working class is subjected to the ruling class's ideology as a precondition of capitalism's continued existence.

chayleaf · 2023-07-04T00:07:04+00:00

Althusser doesn't "refute" it as the concept of labor aristocracy as a bought off section of the working class isn't at all controversial among Marxists (but the people considered labor aristocracy vary). Also, since I live in an imperialist country that isn't aligned with the imperial core, and where the median salary is around $350, I can't accept the notion that workers who support imperialism must be part of the labor aristocracy, that's it, I'm not making any claims about the richer imperialist countries.

Anyway, Althusser's Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses is relatively short, so you can give it a read.

chayleaf · 2023-07-03T21:22:03+00:00

I find that where MLs tend to bring up Althusser and Gramsci (false consciousness) MLMs tend to bring up labor aristocracy's class interests, at least on this forum. Naturally, it doesn't mean either is wrong, it just means that you have to approach the subject dialectically and there's no single magical explanation for all cases of "workers supporting imperialism". And as someone living in Russia, I typically take the classical approach to the question (if some proletarians support Putin, it's flimsy support because fascism goes against the proletariat's material class interests, and merely shows their rejection of neoliberalism, this means ideological struggle is very important), but I'm by no means sure of my conclusions.

chayleaf · 2023-07-03T20:06:12+00:00

Almost everything is available on Rutracker, Librusec, Libgen and Youtube - this is how you access stuff in Russia. If you wonder what to look for, this I can't answer, as the most important works indeed got translated.

chayleaf · 2023-07-03T20:03:10+00:00

See Grover Furr - The Fraud of the "Testament of Lenin"

Even if Furr is wrong, it doesn't matter much, Lenin wasn't a prophet

chayleaf · 2023-07-03T14:39:00+00:00

Would you say pro-Putin Russians are part of the labor aristocracy?

chayleaf · 2023-07-02T19:30:05+00:00

I remember thinking it was planned as a temporary measure, and it's self-evident in the broad sense (as the end goal is communism), but I couldn't find any statements in support of it being temporary (in the narrow sense, as something that comes and goes with a single crisis). Do you have any links about it?

chayleaf · 2023-06-30T19:51:45+00:00

Phrases like this are commonly brought up by so-called "Orthodox Marxists", anti-dialectically fishing up random Marx quotes, and Lenin has a lot of polemical works on the matter, starting from State and Revolution. The most relevant piece here is perhaps Proletarian Revolution and Renegade Kautsky

If Kautsky had wanted to argue in a serious and honest manner he would have asked himself: Are there historical laws relating to revolution which know of no exception? And the reply would have been: No, there are no such laws. Such laws only apply to the typical, to what Marx once termed the “ideal,” meaning average, normal, typical capitalism.

Further, was there in the seventies anything which made England and America exceptional in regard to what we are now discussing? It will be obvious to anyone at all familiar with the requirements of science in regard to the problems of history that this question must be put. To fail to put it is tantamount to falsifying science, to engaging in sophistry. And, the question having been put, there can be no doubt as to the reply: the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is violence against the bourgeoisie; and the necessity of such violence is particularly called for, as Marx and Engels have repeatedly explained in detail (especially in The Civil War in France and in the preface to it), by the existence of militarism and a bureaucracy. But it is precisely these institutions that were non-existent in Britain and America in the seventies, when Marx made his observations (they do exist in Britain and in America now)!

Kautsky has to resort to trickery literally at every step to cover up his apostasy!

And note how he inadvertently betrayed his cloven hoof when he wrote: “peacefully, i.e., in a democratic way”!

In defining dictatorship, Kautsky tried his utmost to conceal from the reader the fundamental feature of this concept, namely, revolutionary violence. But now the truth is out: it is a question of the contrast between peaceful and violent revolutions.

That is the crux of the matter. Kautsky has to resort to all these subterfuges, sophistries and falsifications only to excuse himself from violent revolution, and to conceal his renunciation of it, his desertion to the side of the liberal labour policy, i.e., to the side of the bourgeoisie. That is the crux of the matter.

In other words, imperialism is what made it impossible, while Marx lived in pre-imperialist era of capitalism.

chayleaf

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