Absolutely.

I try to avoid commercial games, or at least big studio produced ones, as much as I can. I play mostly indie games from itch.io or from GOG (not a fan of the Steam monopoly). I also play (via roms through emulators) a lot of retro games from the late 80s/early 90s. I find that older games eschew the more predatory and exploitive practices that many modern games use (microtransactions, DLC, loot-boxes, always online etc). Basically I try to stay as anti-capitalist as I can in my choice of games. And if that means I miss out on some games, so be it, there is always something to play. Hell, there’s more good games out there that I could play in several lifetimes, no point in supporting the games that feed the capitalistic beast.

Parenti, in Blackshirt in Reds, covers this topic excellently. He does not gloss over the flaws and corruptions in the USSR, but he is realistic in giving a fair assessment of their successes in the midst of their failures. A big point being what you mentioned above: the USSR had to continue focusing production towards just being on even footing with the US in terms of defense, to protect against the very real threat of the US overthrowing the government as they were doing in so many other communist countries. At no time during the USSR’s existence were they ever not under attack by some outside force or another (the NAZIs, CIA, multi-national capitalist interests etc). Here’s a good quote talking about the Stalin era and progressive policies during that time:

During the years of Stalin’s reign, the Soviet nation made dramatic gains in literacy, industrial wages, health care, and women’s rights. These accomplishments usually go unmentioned when the Stalinist era is discussed. To say that “socialism didn’t work” is to ignore that it did. In Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, revolutionary communism created a life for the mass of people that was far better than the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonizers, and Western capitalists. The end result was a dramatic improvement in the living conditions for hundreds of millions of people on a scale never before or since witnessed in history.

Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

That’s…gross. But entirely unsurprising. I never knew that there was a neutered version in the US. I actually had to look it up. Wow. Go us. This country really just continues to depress me day after day.

For sure. I’d argue what makes it even more brutal is the friendly, artificial face it puts on the system. You can especially see it on commercials and mainstream tv. It makes it even more repulsive when the conditions of capitalism are given some utopia, Fisher Price look.

Apparently people are pretty happy in Finland, at least that’s what that happiness index article said recently. Otherwise I no fuck-all about Finland lol.

Yeah, the work culture in Japan is pretty crazy. Although, same could be said about US work culture in a lot of ways. Working three or more jobs. Crazy hours with little or no overtime in some places etc.

Another sad consequence of their brutal work culture, is the fact that suicide resulting from overwork is so prevalent that they actually have a specific term for it over there. I can’t remember what it is called, but it’s a big enough issue that it has it’s own term and social consciousness.

Definitely. I try to remember that. I just get stuck in my head the ideal of what I want, and if that ideal doesn’t match what I think I am able to accomplish I just don’t try in the first place. It’s a terrible habit I need to break, especially if I’m going to ever get any decent amount of writing done :|

I think their perfectionism is pretty well known, or at least their intense work ethic. I was just watching something recently (can’t remember, a docu I believe) that had a segment on Japanese work culture and how the Japanese government had to even force workers to take a vacation because it was eating into their economic activity. The Japanese were working so much that they weren’t spending enough to stimulate their economy creating a downturn. One employer locked the doors and shut the power off at the office, and the workers broke into their own office building and did their work by flashlight and their own wifi hotspots. Crazy.

Yep, I’m sure a few things I’ve read in the past through FB were Bande Dessinee before I was even aware of the designation. It wasn’t until the past two years that I started to pursue Euro stuff specifically.

Sweet! I’ll take a look at those sites. It’s been something I’ve been meaning to do, but up until now I’ve been mostly content with grabbing recommends from Reddit and TCJ.

Honestly, I feel that way about most things internet without having any kind of over-arching ailment (well, aside from Chronic Depression :/ ). The amount of stuff, and the depth of the rabbit holes, get too damn daunting to where I just throw up my hands most of the time.

I had no clue about comics from Quebec honestly. Although if someone had mentioned French-Canadian comics and there being crossover with Bandee Desinee in Europe I wouldn’t have been suprised. I know there’s a fair amount of French music from Canada. I live fairly close to Canada on the US/Canada border and one of the radio stations I can get out here is exclusively in French, there’s some great sounding music on there too.

Yeah, relatively new. It’s been around a year and a half, maybe two, that I’ve started looking into BD with any focus. I suppose I had more of an exposure than most by being into the alternative comix scene in the US which has some association with BD at times, especially Fantagraphics Comics. So that definitely helped in getting me into them. I’m sure there were.a.few scattered BD I’ve read in the past that didn’t even register with me as such in the past, but nothing I can recall.

For sure! It’s nice the signal/noise ratio is low on the fediverse, but at times it needs a little signal boost. It’s also a good way for me to immerse myself and get more familiar with BD stuff in general, a win win on all fronts. I’ve learned a lot even in the past week or two.

I know there is some tags at the bottom of the article. I didn’t pay close attention to them. I did try the Angouleme tag, which was suprisingly scant, only a few articles from a 4 or 5 year span. In the next week or so I am going to find some sites that cover BD exclusively, or at least have a larger focus, as TCJ seems to only have a sprinkly at times.

Those were the publishers mentioned at the counter festival, which were mostly smaller, independent publishers. I made a note of them for that fact alone since it hadn’t occured to me to look at the BD output outside of the mainstream publishers.

Definitely. My motto these days is “the perfect is the enemy of the good”. Although I don’t always adhere to it completely. The past few months my writing has fallen off since I fell into the “it wont be good enough” mindset. I’m trying to shake myself out of it, but it’s a difficult habit to break.

For sure. I feel lile that about drawing. It’s another skill I’d love to aquire, but the level of detail that is desirous to obtain is daunting. Sometimes I yearn for a return to a child’s simplicity of being able to make something without getting hung up on it looking “good”. I feel that way about most things, writing, learning about new things, etc. It’s what I aspire to attain most, the act of doing something irregardless of the percieved level of competence.

Absolutely. I love watercolor. Keep meaning to get into it myself. I’m currently blissfully unaware of it’s difficulty lol.

I found Djinn a few months ago. I’ve read the first four volumes digitally, but have held off reading more because I want to get the other volumes in trade since it’s such a gorgeously drawn series. I’ve really enjoyed it so far though. I’ll have to look for more by Dufaux when I’m through, same for Miralles.

No problem, I enjoy being able to contribute to such a small, intimate little community. I hope you’re treating yourself well. Stay strong, friend <3

Well, I appreciate the primer you linked in this thread. I was already reading Blackshirts and Reds, but now have some other material to read in conjunction with it. Take care, friend <3

That’s actually a great strategy. It is perplexing to me to see the incivility of common conservative discourse online with other people they percieve as being “left wing” that others who read such exchanges could see anything other than it being childish and crude, especially when the other party is participating in a respectful manner. For myself, I don’t resort to using incivilty against incivility but end up concluding that it’s a waste of my emotional stamina to continue a discussion where one side insults and denigrates me as a matter of course. I’ll keep your idea in mind next time I encounter such a time. Keep doing the hard work ;)

Bravo on showing such respectful and good-natured civility towards someone who is undoubtedly a troll. I applaud your restraint. However, I think you entertained their obvious bad faith arguing for far too long. It’s quite clear that they are hostile towards communism and are being deliberately combative and insulting to try and get a reaction out of someone. Unfortunately, as the Reddit floodgates begin to burst, I am sure many more trolls and hostile reactionaries whilr be flooding Lemmy for the forseeable future. Stay strong, comrade <3

Give yourself all the time you need. Grief needs room to be able to manage. It took me a looong time to deal with the world again when my fiance passed, and I’m still figuring it out.

As hard as it is try and do little things to keep yourself sane, even things like cooking, cleaning and going for a walk get very hard to do, but if you don’t make time your emotions will get even harder to manage. I neglected a lot of things and it really brought me to a bad place.

My heart goes out to you, take care of yourself. Sending love your way <3

Haha, close! According to Google Translate: “Blue in Daylight”. I used my French dictionary and was thinking “Blue in the Day”.

I was looking specifically for BD with minimal text as well. That, and comics written for children. Oh man, A Gift for a Ghost looks amazing. I have to say I really am loving Gonzalez’ style. I’ll have to check out his other stuff soon.

If you are wanting the physical copy of Bleu, Stuart NG has it for $30 I believe.

For sure! I used to lurk over a /r/bandedessinee. It’s nice that this community is here, since I try to avoid Reddit at all costs these days. I’ll definitely be around :D

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently as well. I decided that I wanted to ditch using any cell carrier in favor of a VoIP provider. I made a post here: https://lemmy.ml/post/26192657.

The two recommendations that came up the most were voip.ms and jmp.chat. Both require at least $15 to get started but you can port your old number over to both services too. From there jmp.chat is $5 a month, which comes with unlimited texts and 120 min a month.

With voip.ms the call and messaging is subtracted from your balance at a predetermined rate (per min and per text) which I haven’t worked out the math on how much mileage $15 will get you initially.

From what I could see jmp.chat looked like it was the easier option to setup, with the Cheogram app for your phone and a Jabber app for the computer. Here’s a wiki entry detailing how to setup jmp.chat: https://kb.above.im/jmp-chat/

I settled on discontinuing my mint service and setting up jmp.chat on my phone and computer, and then supplementing the limited minutes via Signal for calling. Seems like a pretty good alternative to me. I still have a week left on my phone plan, and then I’ll be taking the plunge. I’d been using my phone less and less lately so it wont be too much of a shock, and I’ll save myself an extra $20/month going from the $25 mint plan to $5/month jmp.chat plan.