Despite all my rage I’m still a rat refreshing this page.

I use arch btw

Credibly accused of being a fascist, liberal, commie, anarchist, child, boomer, pointlessly pedantic, a Russian psychological warfare operative, and db0’s sockpuppet.

Pronouns are she/her.

Vegan for the iron deficiency.

  • 3 Posts
  • 302 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • OP have you considered that the state you’re seeing them in is them trying their best?

    Best isn’t static right, like when I run some sometimes my best is wheezing and throwing up through 5 km in 50 minutes because I’m hungover and sleep deprived, sometimes it’s getting shoes on and stepping outside before deciding to quit, and sometimes it’s nailing a pb on a 15 km run and only cutting it short because I have responsibilities and shit.

    You just don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life. I am diagnoses adhd and have been undergoing treatment for 15 years. Mostly I seem like a kinda lazy spinster with too many hobbies and an untidy yard; sometimes I’m a whirl of activity and achievement; and other times I spend 3 weeks paralysed on the couch, absolutely wracked with guilt and self loathing, pleading for my brain to just give me enough of anything to feed myself for the first time in 3 days while my head pounds from dehydration and I want to peal my skin off for how dirty and uncomfortable it is.

    Every moment is me trying my best. I can’t imagine not extending the courtesy of that belief to everyone else.






  • Look ultimately words mean what they mean in the context that they’re spoken but broadly neoliberalism is highly socially permissive. Provided, that is, one does this as a responsible member of the capitalist economy and doesn’t disrupt the market.

    Like you can have neoliberals that love trans kids, celebrate pride, want more black female drone pilots etc. It is, however, not a neoliberal position say compare the number of vacant properties to the number of homeless people and suggest that perhaps we should just take the unused houses and give them to homeless people? That would violate the principles of private property and free markets. After all: what freedom does one have if you can’t watch someone freeze to death on the doorstep of your vacant investment?

    If your friends think that freedom to do that is utterly absurd and a society which defends that is fundamentally rotten then they are not liberals in the academic sense, however their substantially more leftist stance may be called liberalism in the political context you find yourselves in.


  • To clarify my question. What do you mean ‘actually liberal’ ideologies?

    Like what are their thoughts on monetarism?private property? free association? private entities in markets? Debt and paying it, both private and state held?

    If they think that the state should provide the means of subsistence of the entire populus, that property should in general be held in common and private property is not sacred, that government entities in a market are often more effective than private and/or that business should be heavily regulated to serve common good, that debts should be cancelled when it is not realistic or fair to pay them etc. Or perhaps even further afield positions like questioning nation States, police, militaries and boarders… well, then they are not in fact liberals haha.







  • I think it’s tempting to try and be pithy but freedom is complicated. For some people freedom is an absolute, do what you want when you want. For some it is about theoretical possibilities, for example if you ask if people are free to quit there job the answer heavily depends on how someone balances theory vs practice. Others take a practical lens, freedom only counts if it’s plausible to do.

    Sometimes freedom is about ideals. you are free to read all the political theory you like, you umm wont because it’s boring but if someone threatened that would you be upset? At other junctures freedom because pragmatic, “what use is freedom to read if I don’t have freedom to eat? I’ll trade one for the other” someone might say.

    Some people rate permissions more than restrictions, some the opposite.

    I don’t think it’s a concept we can really pin down. Everyone has their own interpretation and it’s not universally values: much as dominant ideologies often insist it is, the rise of fascism should hint that others care much less about it.


  • Sigh, I’ll wade into this river of shit.

    Liberalism is broadly understood as neoliberalism, which is an ideological descendant from classical liberalism. This ideology positions itself as being broadly in favour of individual freedom within a rather tight definition of freedom. Namely liberals are concerned with the ability of people to read what they like, own what they like, marry whomever they like and so on provided they do this inside of a system of capitalist free market exchange.

    Modern liberalism tends to frown on heavy government intervention in market affairs, which they see as representing the free (and thus good) exchange of goods between individuals. They also tend to be broadly in favour of the militaristic western global hegemony.


    Criticism of this attitude comes from 2 places.

    1. too much freedom.

    2. not enough freedom.

    (1) is people that want women bound up in the kitchen and walk around with an odd gait that makes you remember Indiana Jones films

    (2) are people (I’m in this camp) who see liberalism as a weak ideological position that favours stability over justice and, in so doing, ignores the suffering of billions.



  • I snapped and instead bought a large computer monitor, Edifier speakers + fossi BT amp, and use a computer running kodi to watch media now.

    No apps, no end of support life, no subscriptions, no shitty UI, no ads etc. I power on and yay my shows. Can also play the radio/music through it and retro video games when feeling nostalgic, control through phone if needed.

    Cost more (TVs subsidised because they sell your data) but I don’t have to worry about that or learn some manufacturers bespoke and bizarre settings.


  • Sometimes I’m blown away by the quality. Like a lot of the shit I’d buy locally is chinese made anyway.

    Often you get stuff like ‘premium’ retailers getting the stuff that QC passed to a higher standard or whatever but it’s worth minor decreases in quality for a 1000% discount or whatever absurd retail markup there is.

    The thing is, if you’re buying something for a dollar it’s gonna be about that quality. you need to know the brands that make good shit. Like some of the 40 dollar kitchen knives on aliexpress are amazing value, some are scams. Electronic components are similar. I can buy an esp32 there for 5 bucks, or locally for 45. Same product.

    Now would I trust a fruit bowl bought for 2 dollars to be good? lol no. There’s just material reality at the end of the day. No amount of genius engineering and dubious manufacturing conditions can make high quality material appear from thin air.