This is the real answer. When we are stressed, depressed, anxious, and feeling hopeless, we can either turn inwards and retreat from society, or we can lean into our friends, family, and community.

If you have no community, now is the time to build it. A lot of liberals will be desperate, and that means it’s a great time to shake off the lies of individualism (we are all individuals part of a community) and develop the truth of community. Otherwise this cycle will continue the way it always has.

Strength training should be kept simple (I’m a former personal trainer and a current strongman competitor).

For health 2x per week full body is plenty For strength/size/performance 3-6x (with 4x being the best for most of the time) is ideal.

Ideally compound movements (movements using multiple muscle groups) should be the foundation of your training, and should come first in a session as they are often heavier/more complex. Examples are squats/leg press, Bench/dumbbell bench/chest press, Overhead/shoulder press, deadlift/Romanian deadlift, barbell row/seated row.

If you are making your own “program”/ doing your own thing, first make sure it’s enjoyable, then make sure you either add reps(hard), sets (hard), or weight (easier at first) over time (daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever feels sustainable) only switching out movements when they aren’t progressing/hurt/are boring for similar ones (e.g. replace leg press with hack squat).

And for a rule of thumb, choose exercises such that at least once a week (usually twice is better) you are doing something from each of these categories:

• Knee Flexion (squat, lunge, leg press, etc.)
• Hip Hinge (Deadlift, Romanian deadlift, back raise, leg curl)
• Horizontal Row (barbell row, seated cable row, DB row)
• Vertical Row (Pull downs, pull ups)
• Horizontal Press (Bench, chest press)
• Vertical Press (Overhead Press, Shoulder Press, front/side raises
• Core (something dynamic like leg raises, and something static like planks)

If you are new, 4 tough sets (not dying, but you have to put in effort) per week in each of these categories is plenty.

Rare exercises are usually either pointless, very niche, or should be viewed as a fun movement or warm-up (like dumbbell snatches).

You can use an app like Macrofactor to track food, but honestly if you track your calories over a week using a spreadsheet that might be enough for most people. Better for most would be eat more sources of protein (meat, tofu, protein powder, etc) and track your body weight every day. If you want to be more muscular, your body weight should at least stay the same, or go up slowly overtime (maybe around 1% per month), and if you want to reduce body fat your body weight should go down no more than 1% per week. These recommendations are in the context of strength training.

Eating an abundance of plant based foods ( like fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains) is a great idea. Definitely not in the form of like meat substitutes. The bigger variety the better, there are no “super foods”. But I grow something called Cape Ground Cherries. They are a weird little fruit that grow in husks, and tast like a sweeter, more fruit like tomato (I live in a temperate zone with a shortish growing season, 130-140 days, and hot summer’s).

I think that covers everything as generally as I can.

Basically the article says they don’t pay taxes, don’t have full protection under the US Constitution, have to obey US laws and are subject to the powers of the US Congress and President, have no voting rights, are subject to the draft, considered US citizens, etc.

So that basically sounds like a colony.

So Puerto Rico is just another US colony then?

Sure there will be. Elections, especially the carefully controlled elections in the usa, are a great method of social control. If people are allowed to vote for someone it maintains the veneer of democracy, and reduces civil unrest.

Imagine if the party funded by billionaires didn’t let you vote at all. It would be very clear that you live under a dictatorship of the wealthy owner class. But if instead you can vote for 2 candidates, both funded by the owner class, you “have a choice” and it appears democratic.

As well, with such a stranglehold on information/media, the same donors can accept third parties as they will never get enough votes for it to change the power structure. But what happens if a third party has a bit too much support? Well you can’t have that, so the parties you fund work to get them taken off the ballot based on some law that is intended to maintain the status quo. That way you maintain “legitimacy” in the eyes of the people, remove the threat, and continue controlling the population for your own benefit.

Lol I have so many conversations like this. Someone was saying a bunch of people got laid off at their job during covid and they almost lost their house. I said something like “it’s a shame that they didn’t just temporarily decrease everyone’s hours so you all still had work. I mean, the work was going to come back eventually”.

And they of course agreed

I mean, private ownership by those who don’t do the work or consume the product, yet get to make the decisions is to blame, yes. And that is capitalism by definition so… Capitalism is to blame…

The only identity politics I want to see is us against the ruling elite. Everything else is sparkling fascism.

Yeah maybe, they do have the fastest gaming processors, and most efficient workstation processors if you use the x3d for workstations.

I hope not. I’ll likely be buying a bit of an upgrade in the next 6 months…

I was thinking this too. However, Amd still has a much lower market share than Intel so I suspect they will use this to claw back as much as they can. If they manage to get into the 40-60% range, then I would expect them to start playing with raising prices.

Alternatively they may release certain models at inflated prices to test the waters with increased pricing.

This is an armchair analysis of course so take it with a grain of salt

Within any job, there is what your role is on paper, and what you actually do over the course of a work day. Often times what you actually do is much more than “expected”. Work to rule means that you stick explicitly to what your role is, and the way the company expects you to perform your duties. Or rather, what they expect on paper.

An example: Unionized employees will often “work to rule” as one of the first steps aimed at putting pressure on an employer to negotiate. It’s an entirely legal thing to do, and serves to exemplify the disconnect between on paper job expectations (what you are paid for), and real expectations.

Thus, working as per your contract/job description with minimal deviation, will minimize how much you are exploited by ensuring you only do the work out are paid for.

The undiagnosed mental condition could be it tbh. I found it hard to learn anything I didn’t find really interesting (among other things). Boom, ADHD diagnosis in my thirties

Yeah, operating dangerously close to “work to rule” most days is a great way to minimize exploitation.

Yeah, and it’s fully legal for them to take any money you have and claim it’s related to drug money (even if you’re a citizen). You can always get it back if you fight for it but…

Don’t bring things with you that you don’t want taken from you (unless you have to).

Two questions: do you want to be able to play the guitar?

If yes:

Can you turn the guitar sideways and take a picture so we can see the space between the strings and the fret board?

Do that and I’ll send you a link to a tab that is super easy but still a recognizable song. Then you can build from there.

I like how the reactionary communities post shit that isn’t thought out. Then you got a couple of… Left communities where they post thought out essays. Too long to read but probably mostly true

I for one think we should continue with the way things are. Obviously the people who own companies like Tesla and Amazon are better than us. We should be happy to have a job tbh. Seriously, why would I want to be burdened with decisions like whether or not I get healthcare, or whether or not food and education is accessible. We are better off letting the market decide. If education was so important, wouldn’t the market find a way to make money off of it?

I think if you focus on your friends, neighbours, hobbies, etc. You can find peace within the enshittification. But I think it’s a bad idea to ignore the shit. Get mad about it. You should be mad. It’s bullshit. But what then? We can wallow in the shit by ourselves, or we can find groups of people with similar interests. Who knows what happens after.

And by similar interests I mean this as an example: Are you pissed about genocide? Good! You should be! Others are too. Find them, and do something about it. You’ll build relationships that will at least help carry you through the shit.

In terms of ROI this is genius

According to this community absolutely yes, but no in reality.

Just as an aside to add a fact to your statement: Marxism is a process that has been used to critique capitalism, as anyone who is intellectually honest should do. For example: if someone says "socialism doesn’t work " someone who is a Marxist might ask “okay, historically is this true?” And they would see that several socialist experiments have struggled. Then, as anyone who cares to understand would ask, they might say “okay then what happened to cause this?”. And in many cases you will see that Western Imperialism has sought to destroy these movements through various methods including assassinations, and funding groups like the Mujahideen.

Damn. Well, then someone left might say 'well that’s Capitalisms fault". At which point it might be justified to call them a tankie. Someone else might conclude" hmm, Capitalist states do not want socialist states to succeed, therefore a socialist state should expect aggressive action from capitalist states. Thus, ONE of the problems with past socialist experiments has been their inability to withstand these external threats." Someone who doesn’t critique anything might say “SEE COMMUNISM NEVER WORKS!”

TLDR; One of the key aspects of Marxism/Socialism/Communism is the criticism of past, current, and future political economic systems (capitalism, feudalism, socialism etc). Anyone who ignores this hasn’t read much, and should consider whether what they are consuming is state propaganda.