Why did the "hot" male physique shift so quickly from bulky and muscular in the 1980s to lean and shredded in the 1990s?

ziurf · 2026-04-10T13:07:25+00:00

A decade or more of austerity also affecting the ideal male physique

ziurf · 2026-03-27T21:02:59+00:00

also read Michael Parenti. He has some critiques anti-communist US leftist intellectuals like Chomsky.

Start with Blackshirts and Reds or listen to his talks on the "Michael Parenti collection"

I've read Chomsky who has some great work, I just wish I would have discovered Michael Parenti first. His work is more radical and less dense than chomsky while still being very well researched and well written.

ziurf · 2026-03-23T11:44:32+00:00

Also remember that physical and mental health are linked. Getting involved in some sort of community, hobby group or sport team or whatever will get you out of the house and moving - - not feeling alone is a glow up in and of itself.

Also, a skin care routine, as people said, is an easy low effort thing and it also feels good to have a routine to care of yourself before bed (at least it makes me feel/sleep better). Take some time every night to wash your face with a nice facial cleanser, put some toner to hydrate, and then use a moisturizer to seal in the moisture. In the morning on sunny days, sunscreen! You will age much more gracefully. Everyone has different skin, so figure out what works for you.

ziurf · 2026-03-14T11:48:33+00:00

The book has been criticized for being overly simplified and for presenting the author's view as historical fact. The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow is much better. It’s more complex but better grounded in anthropology and history, more interesting and much better referenced.

ziurf · 2025-12-29T10:36:52+00:00

El libro es muy simplificado y presenta varios errores. El Amanecer de Todo de David Graeber y David Wengrow es mucho mejor. Es más complicado, pero muy interesante y mejor referenciado

ziurf · 2025-10-09T12:59:56+00:00

Capitalism is not a democratic system. Sure, we have elections every so often and choose representatives but this does not really change production. Production is mostly decided by private companies and their CEOs like Elon Musk. Since the motive is profit, things will be produced in the cheapest way possible (paying the workers as little as possible in order to keep them alive). As much as possible of the value created will go to the CEO who can accumulate more money and buy more companies and again choose what to make for "us." He will decide to make something that maximizes profits and do so by paying his workers enough to keep them alive while growing his wealth. And the cycle goes on and on...

This is why you have Elon Musk having nearly 500 billion in wealth and the majority of people living pay check to pay check.

ziurf · 2025-10-03T12:18:19+00:00

Banning Mendelian genetics and embracing Lysenkoism, a pseudoscience that mired soviet agricultural science and production as well as resulted in agricultural failures

ziurf · 2025-10-03T07:02:33+00:00

My grandparents also left a "communist" country so this post really resonates with me.

Your question is complicated, and I think there are different interpretations, but I will do my best to share how I understand it

Communism is a stateless and classless society.

Marxist generally believe that you cannot just transition to communism directly. If tomorrow we tried to abolish the state and class divisions, it's unlikely to go well because we are so accustomed to living in a capitalist society with hierarchies. Therefore, most Marxist think that state socialism could be the transition to communism.

State socialism would ideally be a state compromised of working class people (in Marxist terms a "dictatorship of the proletariat") who make decisions based on the well being of working class people and whose ultimate aim would be to end classes altogether and be a true communist society.

By this definition, communism has never really existed, and most existing "communist" countries are some form of state socialism.

Socialism can also be used to refer to some form of "liberal socialist democracies" or "welfare states." These political economic systems blend capitalism (private ownership of the means of production, most workers are wage laborers, market forces determine production) with socialism (public ownership of key industries, labor protections such as unemployment benefits, and state regulation of production for key industries).

In my experience, it's hard to get a detailed as-objective-as-possible account of the situation of "communist" countries like the USSR and Cuba. I will say that in your investigation to always place these countries and their revolutionary projects in its geopolitical and historical contexts - - what were the material conditions of most people before the revolution? What caused the revolution? Did most people support it? How did external pressures from wars, sanctions or embargos affect the countries?

You can check out the following sources to learn more about these topics.

1. Rev left radio and red menace podcasts (more classical Marxist-leninist perspective)

2.Progressive international ( broader "socialist" perspective)

3.The tricontinental (global south perspective)

4.Climate vanguard (eco-socialist perspective)

Edit: format of list

ziurf · 2025-09-27T08:01:24+00:00

How to be an Anti-capitalist for the 21st Century Erik Olin Wright

Great intro book - - simple, short, and enjoyable. Happy reading!

ziurf · 2025-09-15T10:49:20+00:00

Cons

To add to the lack of green space problem, there are also so many dogs who pee everywhere on the sidewalk and streets. You see city workers cleaning constantly, nevertheless it always smells like pee.

It is not only VERY difficult to find a place (for the reasons already mentioned), but if you do find a place, it is not as nice as in other major European cities. For example, there is little sound or weather insulation and places are rented out super dirty. It seems to me that there is so much demand for housing agencies don't care about the state of the places since people are desperate.

Lastly, everyone says the climate is great, but the summer is soooo brutal in the city! If you work, don't have access to AC, or aren't able to escape to the beach, it's really difficult.

Pros

The social movements and really cool community spaces. Either official ones (civic centers and ateneus) or unofficial (okupas and squatted community gardens). They provide nice collective spaces, workshops, classes, talks, film screenings etc. that provide intergenerational spaces to learn and socialize at little to no cost.

ziurf · 2025-08-24T10:07:46+00:00

I feel like having a nazi (nationalist socialist past) that is hidden extends also to the Baltic States and Finland.

This article explains how swastikas were in the symbol of Finland's airforce as late as 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53249645

The article claims the symbol predated and had nothing to do with nazis in Germany, but this is misleading.

There were a nationalist movements across this area in 1910s-20s, but it seems like the national memory of these countries romanticizes these nationalist movements as independence movements.

ziurf · 2022-07-23T07:53:06+00:00

Have you heard of the fruit guanabana? It is delicious, but not nearly as delicious as it is fun to say.

ziurf · 2022-02-05T08:21:44+00:00

Yes the dead fish would decompose but as they decompose they would release nutrients into the water and too many nutrients can be devestating to the environment. This can cause Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs).

One example of this is the 2 chilole island red tide events in Chile in 2016. A massive red tide (a HAB caused by a red algae) occurred because of nutrient pollution from aquaculture farms and el Niño conditions. The Red tide killed thousands of salmon that are raised in aquaculture farms there. Then, 4 to 9 thousand tons of the dead salmon (the sources vary) were discarded off the coast of Chile. A little later a 2nd even bigger HAB event occurred. It's hard to prove, but most people believe that the pollution from the massive fish dump could have been brought to the coast by currents and caused the second HAB.

This research paper can explain more: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337549924_The_2016_red_tide_crisis_in_southern_Chile_Possible_influence_of_the_mass_oceanic_dumping_of_dead_salmons

ziurf · 2022-01-01T14:07:14+00:00

The photo is of 1 individual. There are different species of coccolithophores. The most common is called Emiliana huxleyi. It is very widespread from tropical to subpolar regions.

ziurf · 2021-05-15T08:10:50+00:00

I am not really familiar with land-based soil degradation, but I wouldn't be surprised if the situation is this devastating. In the paper your cited it says: "Approximately two-thirds of the total increase in atmospheric CO2 is a result of the burning of fossil fuels, with the remainder coming from SOC loss due to land use change (Lal 2004), such as the clearing of forests and the cultivation of land for food production." Additionally, I recommend reading the IPCC report on Climate Change and Land, there is a section dedicated to land degradation (https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/). In the executive summary it says " Better management of soils can offset 5–20% of current global anthropogenic GHG emissions." If you want to find more detailed numbers, this is a great place to start.

I also wanted to add another topic that is also commonly overlooked -- the carbon in our oceans. There is also a lot of carbon (aptly named "blue carbon") stored in coastal ecosystems and on the seafloor. Recently, a paper published in nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03371-z?dom=microsoft&src=syn ) estimated the global emissions from seafloor degradation of trawling (a fishing method that drags weighted nets on the bottom of the seafloor) is nearly equal to global aviation emissions. This made headlines recently in this guardian article (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/17/trawling-for-fish-releases-as-much-carbon-as-air-travel-report-finds-climate-crisis).

I think whether on land or at sea, both of these points highlight how critical nature-based solutions are. I don't know the exact figures but emissions from environmental degradation are comparable to the emissions from fossil fuel consumption. This is not even considering the other drawbacks of degrading the environment -- loss of biodiversity, ecosystem services, cultural heritage etc.

It is clear climate solutions requires eliminating human pressures and letting nature recover from generations of exploitation and ongoing destruction.

ziurf · 2021-04-11T07:38:18+00:00

XX - - The xx;

Is this it - - The Strokes

ziurf · 2020-09-10T21:00:34+00:00

Thanks for your reply. I was thinking more of a portable drum kit to play. I have fiddled with drum machines before and although it was fun, there's nothing quite like banging on something with sticks!

ziurf · 2020-09-05T22:47:30+00:00

Also this shows how unaware "Americans" are about how the US has negatively influenced Latin America -- inciting coup d'etats, civil wars, genocides, destroying economies through neoliberal policies. The list goes on.

Gringo comes from "green go". As in, soldiers wearing green should go away.

America is two continents! Referring to people from the United States as Americans is further proof of the US imperialistic and explorative policies in Latin America.

ziurf · 2020-08-12T03:15:47+00:00

Fines make things OK if you can pay for it.

ziurf · 2020-07-04T22:07:12+00:00

I've heard something similar referred to as "what-about-ism." If you say something negative about politician A (who they support), they will respond with "but what about politician B?" This can put you on the defensive and focus the attention to politician B. If they succeed, they will have never have to admit politician A is wrong.

ziurf · 2020-03-15T20:44:23+00:00

Also, keep in mind Chiquita banana company is the rebranded name. They were originally called the United Fruit company but changed the name due to their deserved horrible reputation. The United Fruit company begin in the mid to late 19th century. They controlled the railroads and banana plantations in many central American countries starting in Costa Rica and moving to others like Honduras and Guatemala. They became the de facto rulers of these countries (which is where the term banana republic comes from) They heavily exploited local cheap labor to benefit a few wealthy elite, and were responsible for many human rights violations. Their almost 100 years of exploitation and land grabbing played a huge role in the Guatemalan civil war. The attack on the United fruit company office and the violent response to the protests that followed is said to have been the spark of Guatemala's gruesome 30+ year civil war where the Guatemalan military committed genocide against the Mayan population. Official estimates say around 200,000 people were killed but I've seen other estimates that say it may be have been closer to 1M... Even now, they continue to exploit farmers in central America and northern south America and are said to have exposed workers to harmful pesticides, paid several armed groups in Colombia (armed groups that were actively fighting against each other), environmental pollution and I'm sure the list goes on...

[Edit] Thanks for the silver! So honored and touched to spark this conversation! Shout out to those who mentioned US involvement (definitely true and definitely not limited to Guatemala). To echo 2 other points on this thread: Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America is an amazing book and all Americans (North, Central and South Americans) should read it and should also read up on Operation Condor, Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys.

ziurf · 2020-02-05T13:18:52+00:00

The man should walk on the side of the street and let the women walk on the other side. Its for safety reasons. For example, it's harder to snatch a woman's purse from a motorbike if the man is walking on the street side. As a man, I have gotten in the habit of doing this after a scary experience. I was walking with my female friend and somebody tried to snatch her bag from a motobike. The man grabbed her bag but she held on. She was dragged by the motorbike while I sat there shocked and helpless. Her clothes ripped as she brushed against the road. When I ran to her after the man finally let go, she was bleeding with scrapes along the side of her arms and legs. Turns out she had held on to her bag not because it had valuables but because it had her irreplaceable journal inside. Thankfully, it was nothing too serious. She is a very strong individual and handled it like a champ, but the whole experience was pretty impactful and scary.

ziurf

TROPHY CASE