#and make the product and the people making it suffer

[hazeltongzhi]

Is it possible to do historical materialism or be Marxist without human empathy? Genuine question cause I don’t have empathy and I’m bad at moral/value judgements. I started getting into materialism because I was under the impression that it’s a science and doesn’t involve morality or values or ideas. But the more I talk to Marxists, the more I realize that they operate on the base assumption of “we should improve our conditions,” which implies “it is good to improve our conditions,” which is a value judgement. Can I be a historical materialist and a Marxist without making this judgement and if not, what sort of thinking and reading can I do to avoid Efilism, which to my knowledge is the only political ideology/philosophy that doesn’t want to improve the world?

I have to say, extremely wide net for the definition of value judgement to put "we need to improve our conditions" as one. If "I wish to not die" is to be a value judgement, then I'm afraid not only is that definition of value completely useless, it is self-defeating and entirely benign. The fundamental basis of marxism is that all people have material needs and exist in material conditions. We have to eat, sleep, drink, breathe, play, learn, and work. How people set out to achieve these needs under their conditions forms classes and the tools of political-economy which fulfills those needs form the mode of production. The ideologies of each class relate to their material conditions, how they go about satisfying their needs, and the political-economy they exist in. Under these principles, morality is created and applied to material reality; that it is "good" to not starve. All classes have their own form of morality based, too, on their material needs, conditions, and how they fulfill those needs.

Took a look into efilism as well and going by a subreddit's definition, it's the following: "a form of Antinatalism that extends to all sentient life, created by the Youtube based Philosopher Inmendham in 2011. EFILism is the belief that DNA, and the suffering of sentient consciousness, is the greatest problem in the universe." However, you will find that this puts a value judgement on suffering, sentience, and consciousness. It is also just a fascist philosophy rooted in liberalism.

[velvetvexations]

I think my Rocky Horror Picture Show experience is definitely very much so affected by having seen a live production instead of the movie first. Most of the cast and crew were transgender, all were some form of queer, and it was one of the first times in my life I was in a space that was majority queer adults. It was the first time I felt comfortable using a public men's bathroom. After having also seen the movie, I don't think I would have had as great an experience with Rocky Horror if I had just seen the movie first, there's something different about seeing it as a live theater production.

oh tho I would like to add, re: my last ask, that I did have an irl friend who had suffered from a LOT of internalized queerphobia and been in the closet, who came out as bi because of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. So the movie has def done that for some people, and that probably saved them from going down a really bad path of alt-right radicalization given what they'd been watching before coming out

I've seen people moan about the poor trans women who sit in discomfort while all their other queer friends laugh at the transmisogyny, and man, I think that just speaks so much to how sheltered people are nowadays because it's like, oh, is this cis guy playing a villainous pervert singing about being a transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania doing you a transmisogyny? Because he was an icon to each and every trans and GNC person that existed, especially AMAB folk, back when it was essentially legal to hunt us for sport in some places.

No, seriously, that's not hyperbole. I mean that literally.

And it's like...call Rocky Horror dated. Sure. It's dated. But acknowledge that every trans woman who currently has gray hair, not to mention the ones who didn't make it, stood up and shouted all the incredibly lame and unfunny jokes with joy that I will never be able to comprehend as humor but can certainly understand as a matter of community and representation.

[uncanny-tranny]

The bourgeois or "exploiting class" doesn't inherently include the person who gets their nails done biweekly, or the disabled person who has a carer, or the guy who got a $70 video game for full-price, or the person who relies on medication (yes even the ones you don't think they "need"), or anything else like this. None of these people will, on average, have the ability to exploit workers by means of ownership or whatever.

While you are busy fighting with fellow workers, you are still being exploited by your boss, by capitalism, by (potentially) not having healthcare, by being overworked and underpaid, and so are they.

[jewreallythinkthat]

Call me old fashioned but when I see suffering alongside those who are not suffering (in the same way at least), my first thought is not to drag down those who are happy so they can experience suffering themselves, but to instead try and work out how those suffering can be raised up so everyone is living happily and peacefully.

And if to stop one group suffering, I must instead pass that pain onto others, I simply don't make a decision about who I executively decide to be mose deserving of suffering but instead put in the effort to find another way

[faunandfloraas]

Can someone let companies know it's okay to make like lipsticks and face moisturisers that don't have strong ass perfumes in them

[julnites]

Do you have any drawing of your own Spiderman?

I do In fact! I made a spidersona a bit ago and then just touched up the design elements recently. It's mainly inspired by corvids, specifially crows and european magpies!

[starredforlife]

If you fucking morons cared one ounce as much for palestine as you do for this horrid little show.

[homophyte]

there is a rapidly evolving rhetoric against transgender cowardice that is deeply shaming nd it worries me a lot

[dykegirlfriend]

it's almost like if i dont let the whole world know about my new hyperfixtation i will burst into flames

[absurdist-void]

I don’t know how people don’t go insane after knowing the extent of corporate crimes across the planet. Nearly everything we interact with in the west was produced through slavery and poor working conditions. Everything is tainted.

[arolesbianism]

Thinks abt my lob corp nuggets oh so hard. I may only have second hand half remembered knowledge of project moon worldbuilding but I will still forever obsess over my lil guys who suck absolute ass

[butchshevik]

I will probably cave and watch the fall of the house of usher anyways but let it be stated for the record that I do not and never will like flanegans work

[chersoyei]

one reason i think his man 3 is not really a fun(?) watch is that it’s simply just stressful. i enjoyed s2 so much because there was so much queer joy and yeah it was still reality tv there was drama and sadness but there was still queer people being happy. but this season it feels like it’s just fight after love triangle after drama and it’s just not an enjoyable watch. the boyfriend (on netflix for those who haven’t started it yet, i definitely recommend it) captures similar things that i enjoyed about his man 2, there’s drama and stressful situations and i cry watching it but there’s still queer joy and that’s the most important aspect of these shows to me; seeing people like me happy, *real people* not just characters

[spoookiepie]

Ocarina of Time is an amazing groundbreaking game that belongs in the annals of gaming history and also is often the bane of my existence and did as many bad things for the series and Zelda gamers’ brains as it did good

[introvert-celeste]

Oh boy, it's time for my monthly bout of existential dread! 😃

[drorey]

before you send someone a stupid anon ask, THINK