i can’t even tell who they want me to vote for

Glad to hear it! If while reading you have any questions, I’m sure people at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml or !asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml would be willing to help. I assume Hexbear has similar communities as well, but idk about those ones.

You are conflating a dictatorship of the proletariat and a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Please read The State and Revolution as soon as possible, I think it would do you a lot of good.

I’ve never really thought about it outside of the context of code, but I wonder if Git would be handy for this. Plain text and markdown would work perfectly, but there might be better version control systems for things like Office/LibreOffice.

Just finished submitting it to libgen, I think it needs to be accepted first before it’s available publicly but for now I think you can download it from here? If the download link on this page is no good let me know and I’ll try uploading it somewhere else.

Edit: OK nevermind on that link, I just realized that page is password protected well here’s a link that should actually be visible to anyone while we wait for the libgen submission. https://gofile.io/d/OdIZlc

The full pdf is on Anna’s Archive for those who can’t buy it, I couldn’t find an epub for free though. I’m probably gonna buy the epub from Monthly Review and share it myself soon though, since it definitely seems like a worthwhile read.

Both RDR and this DLC kinda stink in my opinion, but I like that it’s coming to PC so people can still access it in the future if they want. Unfortunately, it’s got the same nasty DRM RDR2 has, and that took years to crack, so piracy may be off the table.

Awesome, thank you! I knew about Scihub but this is my first time hearing about libstc.cc. Appreciate your help

So I went looking for more details on this story, and it seems like there is a bit of a catch here in that the patient here was (is?) taking immunosuppressants for the liver transplant mentioned in the SCMP article. (Source: https://archive.ph/4kUXJ) Of course, this is still great news and a major victory! The results of this treatment are incredible and very exciting for the future. The two other participants in this trial apparently also have had very positive results, and are approaching a year of being insulin injection free themselves. The SCMP story mentions that she had already undergone an unsuccessful pancreatic islet cell transplant, so hopefully the success of this treatment is a sign of great things to come.

By the way, does anyone know of a mirror for this research paper? I was hoping to give it a read, but it’s locked behind a paywall.

They did the same thing to a hacker in the 3DS scene years ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if they followed the same plan even.

https://torrentfreak.com/nintendo-conducted-invasive-surveillance-operation-against-homebrew-hacker-201223/

i bought one of the classic tamagotchis like a year ago and these things kinda suck ass tbh. there’s only six things you can get and the “play” mechanic is just flipping a coin 5 times in a row, and if you lose the coin flip more than 3 times then fuck you, your tamagotchi’s happiness doesn’t go up. the 20th anniversary digimon was way better, there’s tons of creatures to unlock and you can raise 2 at once, plus you can battle them with others. plus the tamagotchis don’t have SRAM like the digimons do so if your battery is dying then say goodbye to your vpet. the eggshell design is a lot cuter though and also friendly to lefties so they have that going for them at least.

i wanted to get a v3 tamagotchi because i remember those ones being pretty neat when i was younger but i couldn’t find one for less than like $80 so i never got to find out if they are actually good

edit: oh shit wait a minute apparently they did a 20th anniversary tamagotchi connection? i gotta check this out

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I would also be interested in more sources on this topic. The wikipedia page on Vavilov links this source on the Soviet view of genetics, but it has a very clear anti-communist bias and some obvious nonsense. I only realized this most of the way through typing my comment but apparently the author joined the USSR branch of Amnesty International in 1981, and was the chairman from 1985-1988. My favorites are claiming 10 million peasants were arrested and exiled or shot during collectivization (source: Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 4) and this line:

Thus, Party leaders began doing what scientists always tried to avoid: turning scientific sessions into forums for resolving political tasks.

Anyways, the article is interesting even if I’m skeptical of it’s accuracy. It seems as though there was a lot of debate around genetics in the Soviet Union at the time, which makes sense to me from a layperson’s perspective at least. From what I understand, modern genetics was a relatively new science at the time, and considering the role of eugenics and Social Darwinism in Nazi ideology, I think it’s reasonable that some Soviet scientists were skeptical. If I am incorrect here, I’d appreciate it if someone could correct me.

Vavilov himself certainly spoke highly of Soviet science. Here’s a telegram he sent to The New York Times:

The lie about Soviet science and Soviet scientists conscientiously working for the cause of socialism has become the specialty of certain organs of the foreign press…. On many occasions I gave reports in the press and orally in many cities of the USA about Soviet science, about the exceptional possibilities granted to Soviet scientists, about the role of science in our country, and about the tremendous progress of science during the Soviet period.

From a small institution during the Tsarist period—the Bureau of Applied Botany—the Institute of Plant Industry that I am in charge of has grown during the Soviet period into a most prestigious scientific institution having few equals in scale in the world. Its staff of about 65 people during the Tsarist period at the present time has reached 1,700 when all its branches in the outlying areas are included. The institute’s budget has gone from 50 thousand rubles to 14 million rubles…

We argue, discuss existing theories in genetics and in selection [plant breeding—V.S.] methods, we summon each other to Socialist competition, and I have to tell you frankly, this is a great stimulus, which significantly increases the level of work…

I more than many other people am obliged to the government of the USSR for its great attention to the institute I head and to my personal work.

As a faithful son of the Soviet country, I consider it my duty and good fortune to work for the good of my native land and give my entire being to science in the USSR.

Sweeping aside as vile slander of dubious origin your report about me and the fabrications that in the USSR intellectual freedom allegedly does not exist, I insist on the publication of the present telegram in your newspaper.

Academician N. I. Vavilov (1936).

As for his imprisonment, it seems like he was arrested for foreign espionage and sabotage? It’s pretty difficult for me to find a more concrete answer than this, as this story seems to be an anti-communist favorite and there are tons of articles propagandizing about Stalinism around it. Again if anyone has better sources, or if @GayTuckerCarlson@hexbear.net wants to link a source, I’d appreciate it. I got sucked into this and spent more time on it than I wanted to already.

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Like what am I supposed to tell people? I’m seriously asking here. I don’t know and I don’t expect you to know either, but I really don’t know what to say to people about any of it.

I don’t know either, I really wish I did. Appealing to their morals doesn’t work. Appealing to their self-interest doesn’t work. Yelling at them about immunocompromised people definitely doesn’t work, maybe the least effective thing I’ve tried so far. Being visible and vocal in my workplace hasn’t worked. And people’s logic just goes round and round, you disprove one thing and they use it to justify some other misinformed take, and then you disprove that one and they move on to the next or bounce right back to where they started. It’s a never-ending cycle of cynicism and defeatism at best, and ableist, settler brainworms at worst. I wasn’t kidding when I said being nice doesn’t work, so now I’m just mean. At least that way I’m not biting my tongue off.

The problem is the practicality of it. I can’t give people more willpower to stand up on this. And sure I can go on with guilting myself or telling myself I’m doing some small amount of % harm reduction or telling myself I’m being principled, but it’s not helping me persuade anyone else or explain well to them why I’m doing it.

So what are we supposed to do? At least masking can have a positive effect at all. Who benefits from us not wearing a mask? The capitalists kind of benefit I guess, but even then I can’t see mass disabling your work force as beneficial to them, really. The only other people I can think of are those who choose to opt out of masking for their own personal comfort, trading their health and the health of those around them to avoid social pressure. Hell, it’s not exactly a material benefit, but least when I see people properly masking I can feel a little relief that anyone around me cares.

The only other thing I can think of is if you are the organizer for any sort of event or social gathering, require N95 respirators and strictly enforce that rule, kicking out anyone who takes theirs off or refuses to wear one. Agitating in gatherings you don’t organize is worth it too I’d say, though frankly I wouldn’t expect much in my experience. I guess if you can get your job to provide air filtration that would be good too, but again good luck if you already can’t get your coworkers on board.

I mostly recall posts qualifying as “anti-mask” coming across as a defeated, beaten down attitude about it, like “I give up”, not something anti-science or the like.

That is being anti-masking and anti-science. Copying and pasting what I said in the Hexbear thread on this:

Should I not confront racism or misogyny in my workplace just because everyone around me is racist/misogynistic? Should I not reject the attitude of lesser-evilism just because everyone around me are chauvinistic liberals? Of course not. I don’t understand why so many cannot make that same connection with masking. Yes, our governments, especially the US government, have severely dropped the ball with Covid. But masking is only one step towards a community response to protect the vulnerable, and the most basic one at that. If we can’t clear that bar, how can we expect to accomplish anything?

If you live with people who refuse to mask, I feel for you, that’s awful and I’m sorry they are damaging your health through their inaction. That does not excuse contributing yourself to the spread of illness in your community. If you have the ability to mask but refuse and take a defeatist attitude, then you are not my comrade. Camaraderie is not given freely. Respect is not given freely. I’m tired of being talked down to people who claim to be on my side while contributing to the shit that has fucked up me and my family’s entire life for the last almost half decade now.

On top of living in places where virtually nobody else is doing it anymore, which can attract strange looks or worse, depending on the place. Which can be very isolating, trying to somehow overcome that and be principled while people are getting sick in spite of what we do.

I’m sorry but fuck off with this. You want to know what’s isolating? Having all your friends abandon you because you are immunocompromised. Being forced out of every community you were a part of because none of them will accommodate you. Being forced into the fringes of society because everywhere you go, everything you do, is a constant, neverending reminder that your life matters less than everyone else’s to the general public. And you know what’s really isolating? Spending years, years, calmly and patiently explaining to people the dangers of Covid, the effectiveness of masking, the history of ableism that has led to this disaster, the action we can take to improve, offering people free masks, free tests, anything at all out of my own pocket (even though we are barely scraping by ourselves!) just to try and get anyone to care at all, and none of them accept them, no one takes what we say seriously, and no one can be fucked to change their behavior. How long do I have to be nice and patient with people for? Cause it sure as fuck isn’t working, and if being nice won’t work, then I have no problem with getting mean.

ah yeah one of my reports was a hexbear user. i’m at work now so i won’t have a chance to go through the thread again but when i’m off i can go through whatever’s still up and report anything that remains. again appreciate you taking the effort to fix things, this is far from the first time i’ve seen you doing good work on lemmygrad so just want to say thanks and that i’m sorry if i was too harsh in my comments on this topic, it’s just unfortunately i have (usually unproductive at best) conversations about covid and masking just about every day, so i have very little patience around the topic any more, especially when it’s with fellow communists.

I did report a couple comments that were more blatant misinformation, but i was a little wordy in my reports so maybe they didn’t go through? Regardless I appreciate you taking a look. The general attitude in many of the comments of “No one masks so why bother” and the one or two people calling it “virtue signaling” were particularly annoying. Should I not confront racism or misogyny in my workplace just because everyone around me is racist/misogynistic? Should I not reject the attitude of lesser-evilism just because everyone around me are chauvinistic liberals? Of course not. I don’t understand why so many cannot make that same connection with masking. Yes, our governments, especially the US government, have severely dropped the ball with Covid. But masking is only one step towards a community response to protect the vulnerable, and the most basic one at that. If we can’t clear that bar, how can we expect to accomplish anything?

I don’t want to come at you too hard because I understand moderation is a thankless job, and that you are bound to piss off someone regardless of what you do. But like I said in my other comment in this thread, it was really disappointing to see chauvinistic and ableist attitudes about health left untouched, but those who (very understandably, imo) lost their temper on those with those attitude removed. Again, I’m sorry for the long disorganized rant, but I hope you can understand where I and many of the users here are coming from.