axont [she/her, comrade/them]

A terrible smelly person

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  • 25 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: October 4th, 2020

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  • If you just want to limit it to Haiti, Cuba, and the USSR, then yes each of those revolutions led to a vastly more humane society than the previous one. It also depends on who you’re asking. Tsar Nicholas II certainly didn’t see the Soviet Union as an improvement. Cuban plantation owners with dozens of slaves didn’t see socialism as an improvement. There are winners and losers in history, the losing side usually isn’t going to be pleased.

    And who loses in a revolution? In a successful socialist revolution it’s the capitalist class, colonizers, slavers, the previous bureaucracy, regional landlords. The USSR went from a backwater literal peasant kingdom to a space faring modern country within a single generation, despite a famine and despite the brutal loss of life in WW2. It’s very easy to say the country that sends women to school to become nuclear engineers is not as brutally oppressive as the country with a monarch that forcefully sends women to become nuns. How do you determine oppression? Go look at things like literacy, child mortality, education, home ownership, access to clean water, and what kind of occupations women have. By those metrics, socialist revolutions typically and vastly reduce oppression.




  • I really respect the area of Kerala and its commitment to their public. Very robust educational system, healthcare, and a focus on access to clean water. That’s just from stuff I’ve seen and read though, I’ve never been to India, I’m American.

    I hope the best for India’s future, but it seems worrying from what I hear. I would hope for greater collaboration with China and an easing of tensions with Pakistan. India is a massively diverse place though, with multiple languages and even multiple writing scripts, so sometimes it’s amazing it’s a functional country at all.

    Most of what I hear though is about India dominated by very right wing movements, but there’s a strong history of Indian working class movements as well. I’ll try to be optimistic about the future. Also as an American I am fully aware of my country’s horrifying exploitation of the Indian people. The Union Carbide disaster is still the worst industrial accident in history and its impact should never be forgotten




  • Oh, thanks for replying in good faith. A lot of people gave you hostility because you did say something that seems a little misinformed. And people get ruffled by seeing that kinda thing so often. But good on you for taking the time to read stuff.

    I’d really recommend reading this: The Principles of Communism by Engels.

    It’s very clearly written, short, and explains what exactly communist ideology is and who it represents.

    In very brief: Communists believe there are two classes, workers and business owners. This is always a hostile relationship that can’t be mended, since the two want different things. So we propose the working class should abolish the business owning class.

    Liberals do not believe this relationship is hostile, or they don’t believe it exists. Or they believe it can be mended through the use of state intervention. That’s one of the primary differences here.







  • Metals have what’re called delocalized electrons, where electrons just kind of wander around a metallic bond between atoms. Metallic bonds involve a very low level of attraction between the nucleus and its electron cloud. Turns out most elements have this, so they do metallic bonding.

    It’s only when atoms start to get a little wobbly do they exhibit enough electronegativity to perform ionic or covalent bonding, where the molecules donate electrons. Electronegativity increases on the right side of the periodic table when electron valency starts getting lower. And that’s the non-metal side.

    So the answer is basically that you need more of an electrical charge to exhibit the things we’ve classified as non-metals. Metals are more chill and generally less reactive.

    I should also mention that non-metals have a liquid/solid metallic phase at certain temperatures and pressures. I remember a Chinese study a few years ago claiming to have made metallic nitrogen.


  • The film’s problem was casting Brad Pitt as Durden and changing the ending so that he’s successful. The movie made him attractice and charismatic. The book makes it clear the narrator is completely unhinged and fixated on his hatred of women and femininity.

    The book is very clearly a story about straight men not being ok. “straight guys would rather punch each other naked Ina basement instead of go to therapy.” The movie doesn’t translate that well, so it reads more like a criticism of 90s work culture. Which is fair, but it often misses what Palahniuk intended.

    To also be fair though Palahniuk seems to like the movie, but really despises young straight men admiring Durden as some antihero. He elaborates that feeling in the comic sequels.



  • Star Trek has more historical weight behind it. It more or less created modern scifi fandom. It’s probably so widely beloved because it’s unlike most scifi in that it’s hopeful. It sells you on the idea of a better future where everything could go right, where we can explore space and be chill with everyone. Other scifi franchises sell you on window dressing or a bad future full of the same problems we have now.

    People like Star Trek because they want it to be reality in a way that other scifi stuff just doesn’t do.


  • I do see it as an economic problem. Precarity is going to induce loneliness and tension. People are working more hours and there’s simply less ability to connect. There are fewer “third spaces” (places outside of work or home) these days, so people have reduced capacity to develop bonds with one another. All of that is going to generate mistrust and lack of friendship among people.

    Political tensions are high too, for instance, I would refuse to live with someone who expresses casual transphobic because I wouldn’t trust them to be around me.

    Furthermore this is a niche internet forum with a lot of nerds who have general social anxiety. Probably not a good cross section of a population.