It’s specific, but Quorn nuggets are objectively superior to chicken nuggets in every way.

Better taste, better texture, no gristle, easier to cook all the way through, zero (well okay, much less) chance of food poisoning.

Even if you’re not a vegetarian there’s simply no reason to eat chicken nuggets any more, they’re fully obsolete.

I hope someday an unexpected outburst from the barrel of a gun causes him to lose his life.

Go woke or go broke

‘Stabbed in the back’ myth is evolving!

‘Stabbed in the back’ evolved into: ‘Stabbed in the back by Jews’!

Egg fried rice, veggie spring rolls, egg fried rice, mixed vegetables in black bean sauce, egg fried rice, a big tub of sweet and sour sauce, some egg fried rice and another tub of sweet and sour sauce and some egg fried rice. And prawn crackers.

I wish more German soldiers were punished for shooting Polish people [finger of the monkey’s paw curls]

Damn, guess in the end the prayers ran out

Removed by mod

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.

Man, I’m sure I’ve read it before but I must have forgotten, he really does always cut it right down to the purest truth.

I agree with everything you’ve said, and having read through this other thread about astrology I think I was taking too soft of a position on it, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

I’d also like to link an essay, The Overthrow of Religious Authority and the Eradication of Superstition (1927) which I think is relevant.

You’re absolutely right, it’s no real help whatsoever. But there’s also no other actual guide beyond just having to learn the hard way to discern people’s true intentions, which is difficult and exhausting while astrology appears so simple and easy. This is not in any way a justification, just my explanation of why it’s so pervasive and attractive, and why the state of the world cultivates pseudoscientific beliefs in general - of which astrology is merely among the most socially acceptable to display, and therefore has the largest reach.

I definitely think its use in making life decisions is actively harmful, but it’s hard to pull people away from what may be their strongest social connections. In this way it’s just like any other real religion, which as Marxists we obviously oppose, but we also have to understand that these beliefs, and the psychological need for these beliefs, arise from social conditions of alienation. So until we’re in a position to change social conditions, just attacking the belief system and the people who believe in it won’t achieve results and will just push people away. Especially when so often, the people holding these beliefs will come from among the more marginalized intersections - probably not a coincidence, as if you’re a member of a group who has much more control over their life why would you need to look for guidance in the stars?

When the time comes, I’m sure there will have to be some kind of cultural revolution to sweep out every kind of pseudoscience, from astrology to crystal healing to reiki to everything else, but until then all we can do is tolerate these beliefs in our allies, push against them in our actual comrades and make sure they’re never used to make the really important organizational decisions.

Having been close friends with someone who’s way into astrology, I think there’s a number of factors here.

Firstly, in a world that is clearly ‘going wrong’, with ever increasing economic precarity, political polarization, and visible worsening of climate change, the idea of a system than can give you any level of prediction for your personal future is a huge comfort. Marxism, despite being a scientific discipline that makes very accurate long-term predictions of social development, has no (or very little) power on the individual level, so some people may cling to this other system that gives them a sense of preparedness for their personal life. And while I agree that truly understanding and internalizing a dialectical-materialist perspective means both an end to being able to believe in things like astrology, and a kind of inner peace in the face of the inevitable dialectical unfolding of the material world, most people (who are still valuable allies) never actually reach that level of understanding.

Secondly, as people are increasingly alienated and atomized, it provides access to a large social space of overwhelmingly non-straight-white-cis-male people, immediately gives you a tribe with specific traits and icons to identify with, has (at the very least, the aesthetic of) a deep history going back to antiquity and has a lot of specific in-jokes that can quickly bring someone into the fold. My friend is constantly posting memes about the supposed characteristics of various different star signs, sub-categories of those star signs, interactions between different star signs, etc. etc. It’s an endless source of, for want of a better word, content, which you can enjoy both as part of the space as a whole and from within your specific niche. You can see something and say “Yes, I am like that! They know me so well!”, or “Ah, you got me! I do that too!”, or “Oh, those [star sign]! That’s exactly how they are!”, all of which binds you into a social fabric and identity that rarely exists elsewhere.

And thirdly, through the supposed ‘compatibility’ of different star signs, it gives people a guide to who they should try to form a relationship with. Statistically, by far the number one danger to women is their male romantic partners, both in terms of physical violence but also in terms of the possibility of psychic distress. Will he dump me? Will he cheat on me? Will he leave me to do all the house work? He seems like a good guy now, but is he just tricking me until he thinks I’m stuck with him? Does he secretly listen to Andrew Tate? Will he start doing that a year into our relationship and suddenly completely change? There’s no way to know these things, and under patriarchal capitalism men are under constant social pressure to gain these behaviors and traits. So a system that claims to give even the slightest insight into who you can trust to be a good partner offers a huge psychological comfort.

The only way to remove it is with an ‘exile’ effect

*NATO *10 years ago

This is exactly how I feel, and is only a problem to liberals (I mean philosophical liberals) who don’t understand that certain ends can only be reached by certain means, and conversely certain means can never reach certain ends.

They live in a reality where “authoritarian” measures like a one-party state are just the personal preference of dictatorial leaders who are misguided or evil and who could have just chosen to be “good” instead, rather than those measures being the only way to survive the imperial onslaught.

It was a joke…

Saint Petersburg

Where’s that? Is it near Leningrad?

Bit idea: Marble statue profile pic guy with a shelf full of Warhammer models that are just the gray plastic cause ‘they look better that way’