hey its me 矛盾 remade because I lost my pw to hard drive failure woops
💥⋅🛡️
cio of chen weihua fanclub 👺 she/they tme
um. factories [physical and organizational structures of productive labor] aren’t a “means of oppression”. Capitalists owning them and workers not having control or ownership of the conditions, operations, product etc of them are the “means of oppression”, not the factories themselves. Do we at the 'grad need a rehash of marxism/ML basics…?
qi gong/modified tai chi and meditation practices (by themselves) are at worst harmless, but unfortunately that cult uses that as a front/excuse/cover to describe and advertise as their primary activities, and they even go as far to ascribe spirituality to those activities and synthesize syncretize them into their belief system, particularly their version of faith healing.
Like it’s not even medical quackery it’s straight up faith healing, or rather, they believe that if you come down with bodily sickness, it’s a reflection of impurity in your thoughts/belief/practices. And furthermore, you shouldn’t even touch (evil, something to do with aliens/ufos) modern medicine at all: if you believe in their cult leader enough and do the Correct Practices and think the most pure/correct Thoughts particularly about their cult leader you will be healed. If you fail to be healed through FLDF practice it means you didn’t do enough. Worse, part of that “good deeds/practices” to idk up your spirit points would be to contribute labor to cult activities (for example proselytizing, putting up flyers, writing, etc, all for no monetary pay)… in order to ‘heal’!!!
iirc this belief system was AMONG the main reasonS they got kicked out of the PRC, family members of FLG “practitioners” lodged many complaints to the government that their loved ones were dying of colds and easily curable diseases as well as refusing cancer screenings/treatments.
so like… were these all diaspora from the fleeing aristocrat/theocrat class when the theocracy was ousted (obligatory “my recent ancestor had a monopoly on all eggs in china and the see see pee is evil” screenshot, except replace it with “my recent ancestor owned human skin drums of ritual importance”) or…?
anyway “I cry for freedom thousands of miles away while my country is inhabited by a language that is foreign to us” while congregating on the anglophone webbed site
accelerationism (someone else did mention in their reply)
lelouch vi britannica is an anime character and someone the likes of him doesn’t exist irl (intended tone:light)(sorry, couldn’t resist)
“socialist-sympathetic petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie” don’t exist in the US at least not in any meaningful or organized capacity, and you more or less described why a hot mess contradiction would mean they self-select for “extinction” under a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, but they (well, at least the national bourgeoisie) exist in the PRC. Obviously the difference is that the PRC is a dictatorship of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are not the ruling class, however, the national bourgeoisie are permitted and encouraged to cooperate in building the nation and the socialist project. One such guy [who’s shown up in english-language media from time to time] is a venture capitalist Eric Li 李世默, who I recall describing his venture capitalist role as “willing to take on more risk than the government normally would [in supporting/funding new businesses new tech new fields]”, but he’s just one example. I urge those curious to independently research the topic further, but keep in mind that the conditions, particularly historic and social, in the US are vastly different from those in the PRC.
(edit:I must note that all citizens in prc benefit from social goods and relevant conditions such as relatively affordable quality healthcare, with access still expanding to more rural areas, and relatively unprecarious housing. as such, there’s less pressure compared to both workers and capitalists in the US to scramble, squeeze, and cutthroat-compete, or blame others of their class or blame workers/immigrants [I can’t say non-existent tho. esp re:bigotry towards immigrants in places like hk]； well, for the blame game, there’s also some difference in political education [again not perfect… chinese liberals do exist and many are proletariats tho plenty are wannabe-bourgeois])
I don’t have personal experience here, but something I looked into for myself in the past (and don’t currently have much opportunity to get into atm) as a starting point is workforwater.org – more or less similar advice re:look at prospective career paths specific to what you’re looking for. That website/org seems to have a (nation)wide but not super deep network to help connect mentors, apprenticeships/ish (depending on the role/location), and intern programs, at least for both water utilities and wastewater treatment industry. Either way, it’s a leg up in terms of networking for that specific area. Many of the higher positions require engineering, although I can’t recall if it’s mechanical or civil or either/both.
Just thought to put it out there in case you had some interest in that field, infrastructure might be crumbling in this country but it’s still sorely needed, and will be needed always… so, points for job availability and stability.
Dark factories sounds really awesome (best bet would be mechanical->robotics or electrical??) but unless you plan to leave the US I can’t see heavy or innovative automation getting off the ground here unless it’s under the graces of bezos or musk or their ilk, or a startup looking to eventually get acquired by venture capital (this is an extremely precarious position to be in, startups fail all the time but even when they “succeed” eg get bought out, your position may be eliminated in the acquisition process).
obligatory posting quote from han suyin (specifically, a mortal flower 1966) regarding [western] sinology
spoilered for suicide mention
One evening in March 1965, I was at the University of Columbia Library of East Asian studies in New York. There, upon the steel shelves, were the publications delineating the beginning and the growth o the Chinese Communist Party. With almost hysterical passion, with an ecstasy of hatred akin to love, the American experts on China seek to document China for themselves. China is an abiding passion with them, they scarcely talk or think of anything else. And the phenomenon, so unexpected, of an Asian nation driven to the depths of abject misery, and rising again so swiftly, against all the rules and maxims of their expertise, is a frustration “which makes them foam at the mouth,” as my friend Colonel David Barrett writes. “We can never forget that we lost China, we’re going crazy about it, we’re half insane, like people who kill what they cannot possess and then commit suicide.
wanted to draw China and Japan (both of which were hostile towards the USSR) into a costly war with one-another in order to weaken them both
I mean that alone is bullshit for the time period. sino-soviet relations didn’t go south before prc was even established…
Just didn’t know if you were giving them the hanzi or romanized :P
Yeah Taiwan doesn’t use pinyin all that much afaik, but for names I think they always use a system similar to (if not just is) wade-giles for romanization
(For example 蔡英文(hanzi) Tsai Ing-Wen (taiwan romanization) Cai Yingwen (pinyin);; 马英九 (hanzi) Ma Ying-jeou (tw) Ma Yingjiu (pinyin))
You’re probably fine to use it, especially if you feel it’s similar to your og surname (evoking its pronunciation/first syllable, or its meaning). It’s just a consideration that might come up, definitely would feel weirder if you were a white westerner haha. Historically non-han peoples sinicizing took particular Chinese last names, for example, among Hui ethnic people who practice Islam, some common last names are 胡 hu/hussein 马 ma/mohammed 穆 mu/also mohammed
^ assuming you’re adopting 周 (I mean other zhou surnames like 舟， 州 are less common but would still be romanized to chou in taiwan)
I know some chinese people find it a bit weird when non-chinese people use a (normal/standard) chinese surname when picking out a chinese name (no problem with getting a chinese name itself), idk maybe check in with your organizers first?
I mean if you wanna still run with it go for it, it’s just that last names especially chinese ones are often tied to ancestral roots and often (but not always) is kind of a tell for what region your folks come from (related: mapping chinese surnames and earlier waves of diaspora with plethora of romanizations of their surnames penned by western immigration officers).
Oh, and also, most people don’t factor in the surname when explaining what the name means. 明 by itself means bright, shining, illuminated, smart, depending on context.
I was gonna say, would you (op/sodium_nitride) romanize the “Chou” instead of “Zhou” because you’re going to Taiwan?
The tone of the quoted section is just so self-righteous! Clinical language and do-gooder spin for, in other words, “We need to find more people to identify as sick to put through the torture machine* but I prommy this is helping them for their own good”
*I’m not super active in autism community but I’ve seen ABA particularly for kids regarded as forcefully inducing trauma
I didn’t say that “we should agitate people with petit bourgeois aspirations to side with the working class [their real class] via gen ai tools”. I guess I got ahead of myself when I said there already have been efforts to convince artists that gen ai or tech in general isn’t their enemy, corporate monopolization etc of tech however is because capitalists are;; (eg yes there should be said efforts, maybe better/more efforts in that regard. but anti-ai is very entrenched at this point)
However I did point out that these people are, influenced by a combination of (self-circulated and corporate) propaganda and their own petit bourgeois aspiring class interest (resisting acceptance of proletarian status), pitching their weight with our (and their own) class enemies; with gen ai/ai art as the driving wedge at this present moment but any new tech that reshapes the material landscape would be treated similarly – my comment isn’t about ai in particular, rather it’s more about the art community in question.
Or, maybe I wasn’t clear enough? Anti-ai art frenzy in the artist community is being funnelled towards support for harsher ip and trademark laws, by companies who would actually still be using gen ai but want to hoard and control (and expand) “their” datasets. Yes more people on the side of the working class is good but class traitors exist and if these people, after explaining that technology itself isn’t their enemy but capitalists are, still want to be willing pawns then, well, for on,e I have better uses for my time and energy, and yeah I’d agree with m532 they’re “dumbasses”
case in point: this is a project borne of the anti-ai craze: unvale.io ; here’s a tumblr post they circulated (since there’s a sizeable art/artist community on tumblr who are anti-ai) but digging into the replies, people are fully disambiguating the draconian, PG, family friendly TOS and pointing out that posting to their platform makes an oddly convenient place to harvest virgin (un-touched by gen ai tools) and corporate-friendly data. Not everyone looks through the notes however and plenty of people are still reblogging just the first post and “spreading word about an awesome new no-ai platform!!”. Also, lol @ #supportourtroops shit :: no oct 7 or 9/11
*outside of this direct discussion there’s also extreme ableism among the artist anti-ai crowds as well.
I think the anti- “anti ai artist” sentiment at least online is (or rather should?) be more directed towards the semi-hobbyist to small-business-petit-bourgeois types that pitch their weight with our class enemies, eg will side with stricter intellectual property laws to the point of agreeing that “art style” should be included in trademark/ip law. They also happen to be the loudest crowd when it comes to anti-ai art noise, to the point of also attacking and brigading professional artists who use ai tools. In my observation, the “small business owner” type artists are the most resistant to being proletarianized and act accordingly; in any case, many wage laborer artists also have self-biz hustles like online stores for periodic sketchbook/artbooks/prints (I point this out in a neutral manner not to detract from their primary[assuming] wage income but to color the discussion of petit bourgeois aspirations among the “[digital] artist” community).
I have seen efforts to “convert”/“deprogram” parts of the artist community away from supporting harsher ip laws and explain why Disney or record companies etc benefit the most and supporting harsher ip/etc does not benefit them, and in fact works to empower exploitative schemes of capitalists, but these efforts have a harder time gaining foothold amongst the typical anti-ai/ai art black-and-white views entrenched in the community, especially as call-out and cancellation brigades roll out regularly in those circles.
edit: I dunno if yall were around from deviantart to [idk what platforms certain art communities use anymore][idk artstation?] era but the absolute EASE that online “artists” throw the word “steal/theft” to apply to whatever they didn’t like (petit capitalist mindset where “inspiration” becomes “mimickery” becomes “copying” becomes “stealing” eg “actually deprived me of money”) has been around for decades at this point. I think there are still circles who treat tracing(for practice) and even referencing as untouchable/sacrilege.
Right on. Sorry if I misread what was intended to be voiced from “average centrist” pov, there’s been a ton of ai/tech reactionary buzz even among nominally “communist” circles recently, to the point where I’m even irked when people call generative tools “slop machines” in the same way they say “chinese goods” to insinuate cheap/bad product, when it’s like, that’s what you (or rather, walmart and amazon and they’ve monopolized and limited what alternative options you have) ordered the cheapest crap (for highest markup). Does nobody remember handmade slop content farms like 5minutecrafts? Same “market forces” (if you wanna call it that) are just ordering the same “slop” just from different sources, it’s not like before genai came to wider prominence there was actually that much less “slop” and un-factual/poor quality/misleading content.