we have no reason to believe what the b regime tells the press

All of them, as long as we have capitalism

Good translation work is difficult and can take a long time. In the past, it was either done as part of academic research or if a publishing company was willing to invest that much. At least as far as works of fiction, history, plays, and anything else with nuance and cultural context go.

Now, machine translation is OK for straightforward factual works and can convey the gist of a story, but still do not measure up to a studied, thoughtful translation. I disagree that a bad translation is better than no translation, since a bad one will give the wrong impression of a text or kill its magic or imply things about the culture it came from that aren’t accurate.

AI slop translations threaten to make what’s left of the cultural differences in this world bland, bias them based on the mostly English language works that AI is t trained on, and who knows what else. AI doesn’t understand meaning, it just provides a plausible answer to the input prompt. What would it do with Ulysses or The Bible if translations of them didn’t exist?

Being forced to work for billionaires keeps us from leading more fulfilling lives

Organize movements of workers, tenants, etc. Build up support & experience, establish a program of things you want to accomplish, then organize various actions up until you have enough power to strike

It’s not a single, neat answer. Decades of history led to this point. One interesting entry point: https://thedigradio.com/podcast/counterrevolution-w-melinda-cooper/

Firestorm coop, Haymarket books, Anark, Taylor Lorenz, Zoe baker, saint andrew

Use resources available through your library’s website

This all or nothing “complicit” knowledge is great for personal purity testing and useless for moving the needle. You don’t need to bring someone 100% into alignment with your views, you just need them to stop supporting one kind of harm or start supporting one helpful position (which will be diff for each person)

Meet people where they are to make change

Every tax break for a billionaire or subsidy for a fossil fuel company is money we pay for things we don’t want

A change in lifestyle is bigger than a change in numerical age. If you go away to college, that’s a big change. If you get a job, that’s a big change, etc etc

DSA state and local chapters are all different. Some are reasonably organized and strong, like in NY, others are more sleepy or just smaller. Check your local one out, give them a little grace for doing hard work in hard times, but ultimately you’ll be able to see if they are a good fit for you.

They are effective, but not usually by being convincing. Its usually through saturation so that the first brand that comes to mind when you do need a thing is the one that saturated your market.

Spon con and influencers are more convincing/creating a parasocial connection.

Movement memos

Tomatoes provide acidity/sweetness, depth, and moisture, so anything thing or combination of things that provide that can substitute. Pickles provide acidity and moisture, but not the rest. Mayo & mustard mixed kinda gets you in the ballpark. Red bell pepper provides brightness and sweetness… Start trying things along those lines to begin with.

To be any kind of leftist at all, you have to believe in equality in society, in providing for all, and opposing hierarchy. There are many interpretations of how to get to such a place, though socialism encompasses the biggest ones.

You can enjoy the things you have access to in the current system, but enjoying the system itself, which forces us to enrich billionaires, destroys the planet, pushes us into poverty, and wastes our time and potential working on what the market wants instead of what we want, is fundamentally anti-leftist.

For work, the compulsion comes from outside, not from you. It’s not an addiction, it’s company profit intruding on your life.

They just don’t work well. There’s no technique

Yup! Plenty of smart folks have written about it