tears posted:went to the book shop and there was an extremely overweight dude with a neckbeard sat inside reading china meiville while nodding and making little sounds like "uh huh" and "mmmm" like he was reading some really interesting work of theory rather than a book about the pied piper of dubstep
same except the fat guy is me and the book is ready player one
tpaine posted:LOOK AT SHANE!!
JR (extremely uninterested): "Who could it be..."
Edited by mediumpig ()
Red_Canadian posted:I think you're the only person here who is taking a political side. Surely you can see that describing the situation as " Selling grain whilst some ukrainians starved" is callous as all hell regardless of what your political leanings are? Like 8 million Ukrainians died. This is literally like describing the holocaust as "some Jews were forced to stay in camps".
Yeah things like "the Holodomor happened and was intention and/or evil" to these sorts of people is apolitical and impartial truth. They dont realize those beliefs are ideological. there's lots of things that are so propagandized that they're like a third rail, like any meek defense of the DPRK for example, or Assad, Gaddafi. The response is "Those are 100% insane dictator places ruled by devious madmen who blow up political opponents with acme-brand dynamite, which is a very realistic concept to me because it can't be otherwise because everything I hear in polite company says so"
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me, calm and collected: yeah, extremely fucked up isnt it. now, lets have some beers and watch the minions movie
very angry person: yeah, o.k.
thinking of getting into therapy
Petrol posted:so i was at the pub last night drinking beers, and talking with people. somehow ukraine came up, and one of the people i was talking with, who is young and basically an accidental leftist, a vegan, not very well read i guess, said some stuff about what russia was doing there, how they're trying to start a big war or something - the usual stuff, ukraine troubles are all russias fault etc. so of course i had to try and set the record straight
well, haha, okay. it's all russias fault. that's one way of looking at it.
oh? what's the other way?
well, the worst things that are happening there, especially the nazi stuff, the resurgence of actual nazis doing brutal murders, this is absolutely the fault of europe and america, they have directly sponsored this. and the bigger picture is nato's eastward expansion...
oh, okay, we're going to use big terminology are we??
uh, haha, okay. well, nato has been steadily encroaching on eastern europe, ukraine is a big part of that. and russia, look, i'm not saying putin's an angel!! but russia is naturally going to respond, they also have to defend themselves.
right. okay.
you don't know what nato is capable of.
...
And all was good in the world
And that's how I met a new comrade.
otoh he was an electrical engineer w a masters who had to enroll in a community college intro game design course so he could scam a residence permit in canada and i respect that
hey posted:Yesterday I met a Ukrainian guy at a tool library and we were discussing the importance of community organizations like the tool library. And then he mentioned that the resources should be provided by the state, and then he started talking about how the Communists provided all these resources to allow for a bunch of community activities that he then discussed briefly. And he was sort of tip toeing around praising communism too much, but then I was like... It's all good man. I'm a communist. Capitalism sucks.
And all was good in the world
And that's how I met a new comrade.
good for u, i always fuck up these opportunities by staring coldly and asking "have you heard of ayn rand?" because i have a troll's heart.
roseweird posted:i'm trying to learn to sublimate my judgements and irritations by regarding people who frustrate me as challenges of my social and emotional skills. the way to win the game is to understand them and have enriching and genuine interactions with them. it's hard but if i keep at it then when i am real old i will be so chill that no one will be able to imagine what a spaz i was in my youth
things that make people feel unsafe I challenge, but other than that if a person is coming in good faith and open minded we can talk. but im a person with an insanely acute social subtlety detector, and I can toss one time social interactions in my head for years