wtf I love cryptocurrency now

The dogma that “wages determine the price of commodities,” expressed in its most abstract terms, comes to this, that “value is determined by value,” and this tautology means that, in fact, we know nothing at all about value. Accepting this premise, all reasoning about the general laws of political economy turns into mere twaddle. It was, therefore, the great merit of Ricardo that in his work On the Principles of Political Economy, published in 1817, he fundamentally destroyed the old popular, and worn-out fallacy that “wages determine prices,” a fallacy which Adam Smith and his French predecessors had spurned in the really scientific parts of their researches, but which they reproduced in their more exoterical and vulgarizing chapters.

I feel that this is particularly important to note, as the claim that higher wages increase inflation continues to remain popular among capitalist apologists. Thanks for sharing this.

In my experience, the other pedestrians that I’ve encountered haven’t been particularly friendly.

according to the governor of the Bank of England

You mean the same Bank of England that gave a loan to Fascists enabling them to settle an absurd quantity of unpaid trade credits, but apparently can’t pay workers a living wage without provoking the Apocalypse? That Bank of England?

Now see, I certainly agree with statements like this one, but after using Reddit for so long it’s hard for me to avoid imagining somebody replying to it with ‘OH YEAH? WELL UNDER COMMULISM THEY WOULD JUST KILL YOU FATALLY TO DEATH UNTIL YOU DIE SO STFU STOOPID IGNORANT TANKY READ HISTORY BOOK!!!!!!’

I know that it’s far less likely in this community, but if somebody is taking screenshots of these posts for the amusement of his dipshit anticommie friends then I am sure that somebody would say that.

I have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Standing still for as little as one or two minutes is a challenge for me and people have told me before that my feet ‘looked red’ or that I suddenly looked uncomfortable when all that I was doing was standing in place. My blood pools in my feet and sometimes I can even feel them throbbing. My condition is not so severe that I need a wheelchair, but I need to sit down or I’m very uncomfortable and at serious risk of fainting.

I’m just glad that I have no plans to fly anywhere because the best that these seats might do is delay my symptoms for a short while. The absence of proper seating would be a little more serious than an ‘inconvenience’ for me.

This really is an excellent question. Although the two terms are seemingly interchangeable at times, I understand colonialism as involving the implementation of colonies, whereas imperialism is a broader phenomenon describing how an empire manipulates and exploits its subjects.

For example, here is a quote from Stephen G. Gross describing some imperialism:

‘German imperialism evokes images of military aggression and ethnic cleansing. Yet even under the Third Reich, German imperialism has also worked through more subtle processes of economic and cultural penetration. […] This informal German empire was much more than just German; it involved German minorities as well as non-German elites from across Southeastern and Central Europe. And it gave Germany access to the markets and resources of half a continent. This empire emerged, however, not through guns fired. Instead, it arose through the work of businessmen of all kinds who manufactured products demanded outside Germany, through private institutions that engineered development programs, and through professors and students who became messengers of German ideas. It combined the export of goods and culture. And it was built with a kind of influence that can be called soft power.’

Traditional colonialism, in contrast, was a specific manifestation of imperialism that made space for settlers while superexploiting natives. See Transitional Economic Systems, pages 22–33, for a good example of this. The descriptions of the Fascist colonization of Poland are quite graphic.

I hope that this helps.

I’ve had some classic nightmares where I try to outrun a monstrous being in a dark house or I struggle in vain to escape an increasingly omnipresent force, but the worst ones that I’ve had, in terms of the long‐lasting effects that they’ve had on me, have been sexual in nature…I would rather not describe them in public, but you can DM me if you are interested.

What @felipeforte@lemmygrad.ml said about circumstantial events is important. As far as I can tell, the Polish People’s Republic’s disappointing food supply had roots in the race to modernize and prepare for a possible anticommunist reinvasion in the late 1940s. In the mid‐1950s, the PPR looked towards the SFRY’s model as a possible solution to their underperforming agriculture, and the PPR resultingly became one of the few planned economies without a collectivized agriculture. Whenever the government raised food prices to cover the costs of product, it only pissed people off, and it was like a periodic tug‐of‐war. There were other factors, like debt, affecting food supply, but this one was especially important.

So, which explanation sounds more convincing: this one, or ‘communism sucks’? You tell me.

I recommend reading Class Struggle in Socialist Poland if you want to understand more. This particular copy from Archive.org has a couple pages missing (and a few repeating), but it’s still much better than nothing.

Yeah, sure, I guess that a celebrity is doing far worse maybe…

…but still, can you just immediately forget about her and focus on fixing your lifestyle more? Can you? Come on! Pretty please, with sugar and a cherry on top? Do your part!

G‐d, I hate that mentality. It implies that we’re all just as culpable as the upper classes for the earth’s decay, which is classist and demonstrably untrue.

Yesterweek I returned to Fallout 2 for the first time in several years, patched it, and it almost became an addiction for me. I started another playthrough recently, but I’m slower to attend to it because I’m getting a little burnt out.

I tried Ultima IV yesternight for several minutes, but couldn’t get into it. The interface and controls were too clunky for me, and I wasn’t interested enough in the world or the story to commit to them.

I’m unsure what I’ll play next. Unlikely to be anything current‐gen, though, given my office‐grade computer.

Somewhat off‐topic, but I’ve noticed that lately crowdfunding is becoming an increasingly popular method for studios and individuals alike, coinciding with tipping becoming an almost mandatory practice on behalf of service workers. This correlation is probably far more significant than anybody realizes; it’s as if the upper classes are slowly and subtly outsourcing the task of payment to us.

Cops purportedly attempted to stop Walker over a traffic violation. A high-speed chase ensued, in which police claim Walker somehow fired at them while driving; the cops fired multiple shots towards Walker’s vehicle.

Yes! While admittedly I don’t know for sure if she ever identified herself as socialist (it seems more likely than not), I have a great deal of respect for Dorothy W. Douglas, an economic anthropologist who closely studied life in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Polish People’s Republic. This is one of my favorite books and it helped me develop a more mature understanding of the people’s republics. (It seems that she also studied child labor in Imperial America, but I haven’t read that one yet.)

There are various other women that I could mention, but I can’t say with absolute certainty if they were socialists either. Others that I could mention are people that I can’t identify.

This qualifies as ‘news’?

When the Allies reclaimed Nordhausen it was the anticommunists, not the Soviets, who ended up with the larger share of the scientific materials.

The remaining anticommunists that the Soviets did capture still had to live in unglamorous conditions: on some projects the Soviet authorities limited the rôle of the anticommunist specialists merely to consultation and practical training.

Three anticommunist rocket experts confirmed that by 1952 the U.S.S.R. had sent most of these anticommunists back home, and that the Soviets (obviously) made major strides on their own.

I am not typically in the mood for classical music, but I do enjoy it from time to time. It can be something ominous, like Passacaglia and Prince Igor, Act I, Scene I: Chorus, or something triumphant, like Cavalleria rusticana: Intermezzo (excuse the violence in that video). It really depends on my mood.

Occasionally when I’m feeling cynical, I’ll even listen to ultranationalist crap like Köremovedätzer Marsch or Giovinezza, if only to indulge in my morbid fascination with anticommunism.

Don’t worry, I’m sure that after the neoimperialists shatter Russia, then they’ll get to work on improving living standards for queer folks… eventually… maybe… if we hope hard enough…