Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]

  • 0 Posts
  • 83 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 29th, 2020

help-circle


  • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.nettoMemes@lemmy.mlit's that time of year
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    10 months ago

    Food has a cultural component tied to its manufacture and identification. And IPAs are food that probably shouldn’t exist and which only does as a byproduct of market capitalism. They’re the Lacanian ‘object a’ - an empty, manufactured falseness. We don’t desire the thing itself, but the thing whose absence it symbolizes. What you’re really consuming when you drink an IPA is its innate mechanical predictability.

    (Thanks to the thread last week arguing about pumpkin spice lattes for giving me a new copypasta to use about anything I personally dislike.)




  • Have you considered the possibility that some people like the taste of pumpkin spice lattes? Or do you just get to dismiss everything you personally dislike as “The Lacanian ‘object a?’” You could substitute literally any food or drink for PSLs in what you said, it’s completely meaningless.

    It’s just empty words and phrases for you to feel superior to others based on what treats you enjoy or don’t enjoy.



  • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.nettoMemes@lemmy.mlCan we please
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    There’s probably a way to link literally any given thing to white supremacy and cis heteronormativity provided you don’t care how tenuous the connection is. Hating mainstream stuff when you don’t have an actual reason is just a way to make yourself feel superior. Hell, I could probably draw a more compelling connection from hating basic stuff to white supremacy and cis heteronormativity than you could for the reverse.

    The infamous Drones are Queer paper is probably a good example of how it’s possible to draw a connection between virtually any two things if you try hard enough. Or just tell Chat GPT to write an explanation on how X and Y are linked for any two things.






  • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.nettoMemes@lemmy.mlCan we please
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    downbear

    I don’t think anybody’s being pressured into drinking pumpkin spice lattes or eating avocado toast lmao. D&D is a fun and good creative, sociable activity and more people getting into it is good, actually.

    Any popular thing is going to have hype around it, that doesn’t mean that it’s inherently bad. You’re free to dislike popular stuff but saying it’s bad just because it’s popular is a bad take.





  • Yeah it’s like, typing this out really drew my attention to how much conversations about China are dominated by random noise that’s largely insignificant or bullshit. It’s always this 24 hour news coverage level of analysis, with no actual study of history or major trends and themes. Hell I realized myself the other day that there were two leaders between Deng and Xi who I couldn’t name and know basically nothing about.

    I think that most people fall into certain ideological traps that allow them to simplify narratives to the point of never really feeling the need to study anything, in part because the world is just so big that it’s hard to actually be informed about things. You never have to decide how you feel about specific events in China’s history if you just scream “CHINA BAD” every time it comes up, and that’s a whole lot of history you never have to bother learning now.


  • Well, on the one hand, you have an old book you might read all the way through once (but probably not) that says to be responsible stewards of the earth. But on the other hand, you have people on the TV every night telling you to support whatever makes corporations the most money.

    Old ideas can have value but it’s hard to compete with new ideas when those new ideas have a lot more money and can be crafted to appeal to a specific audience (regardless of what’s true).



  • I'll offer my own answers as well.
    1. The CPC

    2. I agree, though I think it may have gone too far. Allowing billionaires is a dangerous gambit due to the possibility of them gaining political influence, and allowing landlords was a mistake. However, these reforms have helped lift 800 million people out of extreme poverty and were necessary at the time.

    3. Land reform, the Barefoot Doctors program, Deng’s reforms, and the Belt and Road initiative have all been very successful and increased the standards of living for an enormous number of people. The CPC has had a focus on improving the lives of their poorest people, and in that regard they’ve done a very good job.

    4. The Great Leap Forward, the Sino-Soviet split, the Cultural Revolution, LGBT rights, and past China’s foreign policy such as supporting Pol Pot/the Khemer Rouge and invading Vietnam. A lot of the blame for the Sino-Soviet split lies with Khrushchev, but I think there’s enough blame to go around. I think the Soviet policy of “peaceful co-existence” was more correct, and more in line with what China ended up doing anyway (libs will roast me for that, I’m sure). Some positive things did happen during the Cultural Revolution (such as the above-mentioned Barefoot Doctors program), but generally it was a chaotic mess and I’m not sure it accomplished very much. The GLF had a lot of factors, including the Sino-Soviet split, but there’s plenty of blame to ascribe to Mao (the sparrows did not, in fact, deserve it)

    5. Kind of trite but one take-away is “seek truth from facts.” When Mao was successful, it was because of his experience living among rural Chinese, and looking at what they needed. Where he was unsuccessful was when he got too caught up in theory, sometimes assuming something would work without paying close enough attention to whether it actually was. I consider the overall political project successful due to the improvements made in people’s lives, but how the devil’s bargain with the capitalists will ultimately play out remains to be seen.