Yup, can’t have that!

Calling it now: any challenges to the status quo (aka holding capitalism and the christian white supremacist patriarchal ableist state and establishment responsible for creating the mess we’re in for their own benefit) are going to be categorised as “putrid conspiracy theories” right along side and equally to shit like blaming the Jews for controlling and manipulating the economy, asylum seekers for stealing all the jobs and white women, trans people for grooming and turning all the kids, disabled people for draining the tax pot, and communists for anything that’s left over.

The education system is far too valuable an asset to the state, they’re not going to let such an important tool of indoctrination be subverted to the point where it can be used against them.

So the kids can get a little critical thinking, as a treat, but not enough to give them ideas above their station.

I really miss kbin… 😔(no hard feelings, I genuinely wish Ernest the best and hope he makes a comeback)

I actually tried migrating my account from there before the major issues, as a backup, but realised it didn’t back up my blocked lists, which are much harder for me to recreate than my subscribed list and settings are, so decided to wait and see if anyone improved the migration tools.

Then it became too late, and I had to start from scratch, and am now regretting the instance I chose, and have not yet had the brain space to check out the other kbin/mbin instances and find a new one I like. Until then I’m reluctant to participate.

If anything, the last couple of months, with kbin dying and realising how uncomfortable I am on an instance run by people who have expectations from their users I fundamentally disagree with, have made me want to start my own private kbin/mbin instance for myself so that I don’t end up in either situation again, but I don’t know that it’s something I can take on, having no programming knowledge or any experience with anything like that.

So yes, I agree with you, for more than the reasons you’ve provided, and I hope we, as a general community use these developments to learn and improve.

This is just really pedantic tho,

It really fucking is, and you’re clearly aware it is, and yet, here we are!

the most important part is that femicides get treated more seriously

So how about you do just that? You do realise that you are perfectly capable of just keeping this kind of unhelpful bullshit to yourself, right? Because I honestly doubt anyone gives a shit if a poster made by a charity already taking femicide more seriously “doesn’t feel right” to you, a person clearly more concerned with the artificial construct that is grammer than with the content. The only thing your reply has contributed to the conversation is to derail it. Well done.

I become a stauncher anti-capitalist every day, since capitalism and its unsustainable and literally impossible aim of infinite growth, and the greed and corruption it encourages, is why climate change is not only happening but also not being treated seriously, and abolishing it is the only hope we have of dealing with the damage climate change will bring and try and minimize it going forward (since its past the point of stopping it entirely).

The whole point of those responsible shifting blame on to individuals who have nothing to do with the decisions that got us here, nor the profits they make, is to get you to the point you’re at now - hopelessness which leads to inaction, or desperation that leads to futile action (like banning straws or paying to reduce your “carbon footprint” - a term they made up for this exact purpose, and so on, all of which are there to make sure you’re criticising your neighbour for their recycling habits instead of the companies that say they’re recycling and get paid to but really send the garbage directly to landfill, or to a developing nation already drowning in western trash).

What you actually need to be is angry and focused, to ensure your anger is aimed at the right people and the systems they uphold that got us here. Those systems are not natural or inevitable or immutable, they are artificially created by and for the benefit of a really small group of humans, a group we could easily be rid of if we actually united to do so.

Oh, the irony of the police “warning” us (hint: they play a large part in the violence, both directly themselves, and by enabling others).

Also:

https://chimesnewspaper.com/52853/opinions/the-language-of-rape-culture-normalizes-violence/#:~:text=THE IMPACT OF THE DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE 

TL;DR:

Making profit off of medication (or any other basic survival need, for that matter, and especially if they’re publicly funded) is and always will be immoral.

Yeah, I wasn’t really paying that much attention, and went off of OP reply’s 30 x 1000 and then missed out a zero lol

But yeah, it only gets more despicable the more accurate the numbers are…

I understand they need to recoup research costs, but…

Except they don’t even need to do that, because, as is with most pharmaceuticals, the research was almost fully funded by the taxpayer.

And the 30% profit is for a generic product, so the research has already been done.

So yeah, 30% profit is of course much better than 3000%, but both are still obscene profiteering off of a lifesaving product paid for by, and then essentially withheld for ransom from, the general public.

It really is an incredible read, but to be fair, it was already the case back in the day, and even earlier, off the top of my head:

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/ye-olde-anti-vaxxers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Mask_League_of_San_Francisco

Difference is we now have instant global mass media, so it all spreads much further, much faster.

But anti-intellectualism has always been a core feature of fascism

At some point it won’t anymore, but for many different reasons, they can’t see/don’t care.

First of all, as we mentioned, capitalism decays in to fascism, at which point (and why they actively working towards it) they will have even more power and less human rights to get in the way of the exploitation oppression and resource accumulation.

Then there’s also the fact that, being so far removed from the rest of society and being the ones who make the rules, they don’t feel like those should apply to them, not even rules of nature like “infinite growth is impossible in a finite world”.

This also means that their view of reality is so warped they think they’ll always be on top/secure. For example - they’re all spending millions even billions on bunkers, but never stop to consider who will serve and protect them in that bunker and why anyone would still be willing to (when things get bad enough, their money will be useless), as well as what world they might come out to if they do survive. Never mind stop what they’re doing to prevent the need for a bunker in the first place (to them, being equal to everyone else seems like a worse fate than global destruction).

The problem is that capitalism is a global cancer, and one fascist coming to their end doesn’t mean the system that got them there has been destroyed, or even “fixed” (you can see this in the failures to de-nazify Germany after the war, or to de-racist America after it’s founding, or de-monarchize? the UK for example), and that is why we say “workers of the world unite”, because it will take a global effort, not only in revolution, but in creating an equitable, just, and inclusive foundation for something better to be built on out of the void (this will require mass deprogramming and unlearning of the social structures imposed by the kyriarchy, and re-learning solidarity, compassion, community, cooperation, and so on - all things that actually come naturally to us, but are beaten out of us by life under capitalism).

And now I’ve lost my train of thought, and I’ve probably rambled on enough, so I’m going to leave it there lol

I’m not sure I understand, since the two don’t contradict - the system working as intended for capitalists, doesn’t stop it from also being decaying, it is a literal inevitability of an unsustainable system that only ever works for a tiny fragment of a percent of the population.

Being an acceptable feature to those removed from the harm they’re causing doesn’t give their perspective any validity - nothing about the current state of affairs is sustainable, that’s the point.

Why the far right is surging all over the world

Capitalism is decaying, and fascism is its inevitable conclusion. This isn’t news, either: The Question of Fascism and Capitalist Decay

I think making us purchase happy, while indeed very beneficial to the owning class, is still just a side effect (E: of the length of the work day, not capitalism in general) to the real reason (and why the 8 hour work day is a compromise people had to fight, and die, for) - keeping us tired and hungry (and not only for indulgence) and at risk of losing it all if we don’t go to work tomorrow keeps us from having the time, energy, and community (because capitalism encourages crab mentality) to organise and revolt against them, and their oppressive systems.

True…

Though an “it” at the end of that sentence would have gone a long way to reduce my initial confusion lmao😂

To toss off

Ah yes, the high road, the best know cure for and deterrent of fascism… 🙄

further incite the right, convince them that they are fighting the holy fight, and accelerate violence against the citizenry?

Literally already happening.

How anyone can think that rolling over and playing dead while fascists stomp their way in to (more) power is a better way to “fight” them, than, I don’t know, actually fighting them, is honestly mind blowing.

Check your privilege, the fact that you aren’t impacted by their ongoing war, doesn’t mean no one else is.

Depression and mental illness leads some to want to go with a bang

No, they really fucking don’t, privilege and the sense of entitlement it gives do.

Like seriously, beyond the bullshit that is scapegoating mental illness because it’s easier than facing reality, that’s literally not how depression works, nor “mental illness” in general, especially when you consider that mentally ill people are significantly more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrate it.

Stop perpetuating this lazy counterproductive bullshit.

We have the Bolsheviks to thank for it! (E: to be clear, and as will be evident by the links I shared, I am not a Leninist lol)

My summation of the concept is obviously superficial, here are some good places to start getting a better idea of what it is and where we might start:

https://www.weareplanc.org/modules/wtf-is-dual-power/

https://medium.com/@anarchist.environmentalist/an-anarchist-dual-power-e911edf66ad7

https://blog.pmpress.org/2019/09/02/alternative-institutions-or-dual-power/

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full (there isn’t a specific dual power bullet point, but it does come up, and in general this document is worth looking through)