frankPodmore
@frankPodmore@slrpnk.net
- Comment on Annotations for *Star Trek: Starfleet Academy* 1x08: “The Life of the Stars” 3 days ago:
I thought it was interesting that the Doctor didn’t want to mentor Sam after he was so enthusiastic about taking the same role for Seven of Nine. This episode gave a solid explanation!
- Comment on If someone tells you that communism has led to famines in the USSR and China, that it doesn't have any incentives and that anyone who supports it use products of capitalism, how do you counter this? 1 week ago:
Even if you use open source software exclusively, the hardware you run it on was still manufactured under capitalism, the hardware it was built on was manufactured under capitalism, the electricity you’re powering your hardware with was provided by capitalism, and the very economic system that allowed the devs to build and maintain the software… was capitalism.
None of this is in capitalism’s favour. That there’s no getting away from it is, for Marxists, a key argument against it.
- Comment on If someone tells you that communism has led to famines in the USSR and China, that it doesn't have any incentives and that anyone who supports it use products of capitalism, how do you counter this? 1 week ago:
I’m not a communist myself, but the last point is so fatuous that I think it’s fair to conclude that anyone actually making it is not arguing in good faith.
The first two, though, are completely valid arguments and you should respond to them by ceasing to describe yourself as a communist!
- Comment on Thoughts on Kanar 1 week ago:
Oh shit, that’s a good point, because it’s drying her out.
- Comment on Thoughts on Kanar 1 week ago:
Damar drinks it often on Cardassia Prime in season 7, and it seems pretty viscous there.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x06 "Come, Let's Away" 2 weeks ago:
Nah, they’ve never jettisoned the nacelles. The warp core is the dangerous bit (Voyager jettisoned it, what half a dozen times?). I don’t know if the warp core on the Athena is floating but… maybe.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x06 "Come, Let's Away" 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, the Athena’s wings are cool. But, again, the weird floaty bridge is… weird.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x06 "Come, Let's Away" 2 weeks ago:
Another good episode! Really feels like the show is hitting its stride now.
My only complaint is a bit of standard fan whinging: I hope the detached nacelles go the way of the S1 Discovery Klingons. They just look so goofy.
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 0 comments
- Comment on Starmer says he won't 'choose between' the US or China 4 weeks ago:
Europe? I don’t know her.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x03 "Vitus Reflux" 5 weeks ago:
I want some warp core pajamas.
Right? Glad I’m not the only one! I also want Thok’s workout jacket thing.
- Comment on 2025 is ‘year of the octopus’ as record numbers spotted off England’s south coast 2 months ago:
I, for one, welcome our new cephalopod overlords.
- 2025 is ‘year of the octopus’ as record numbers spotted off England’s south coastwww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 4 comments
- Comment on Kemi Badenoch: Tories to scrap petrol ban if they win next election 2 months ago:
Can you imagine explaining this to people in a few decades?
‘People were opposed to electric cars back in the old days.’ ‘Oh, that’s weird. Were petrol cars cheaper?’ ‘Nope’. ‘Were they… cleaner?’ ‘No, no. They made the air poisonous, actually.’ ‘Even for the people driving them?’ ‘Especially for the people driving them!’ ‘Oh, so petrol engines must’ve been more efficient.’ ‘Ha ha, oh God, no.’ ‘???’
- Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 0 comments
- Rape victims in England and Wales to be protected from ‘serial liar’ trope in legal shake-upwww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 0 comments
- Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 7 comments
- Comment on Nimby Watch: Nimbys hate your children 2 months ago:
Every small town/village has loads of kids hanging out in supermarket carparks. It is, as you say, bleak.
- Comment on Nimby Watch: Nimbys hate your children 2 months ago:
That is really upsetting! Those old housing estates get a bad rap (sometimes justified), but it’s noticeable that they’re the only inner city neighbourhoods where kids still play outside regularly, precisely because they’re designed with pedestrians rather than cars in mind.
- Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 6 comments
- Comment on Don’t believe Nigel Farage’s denials. He targeted me for being Jewish – and it hurt | Peter Ettedgui 2 months ago:
I think if it’s true that he’s a racist - and it is - it’s worth saying it. In addition there are two instrumental reasons we should say it.
First, Farage’s whole schtick has been to say: ‘You can oppose immigration without being a racist’ and the related argument ‘You shouldn’t be called a racist just because you want less immigration’. Proving that he is, himself, a racist makes both arguments deeply suspect.
It also more broadly crystallises what’s evil about him for those of us who already hate him (most people!) and shows exactly why he needs to be kept out of power at all costs. If I’m in a swing seat at the next election (currently safe Labour but will there be anywhere safe by 2029?) this is the kind of thing that will make me go ‘I don’t have to like it - and I don’t - but I’m voting for Lib Dems/Greens/whoever is best placed to beat this guy’.
- Don’t believe Nigel Farage’s denials. He targeted me for being Jewish – and it hurt | Peter Ettedguiwww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 6 comments
- ‘It fully changed my life!’ How young rewilders transformed a farm – and began a movementwww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 0 comments
- Comment on Can we have a healthy life only with fruits or fruits and plants combined alone, and if not why? 3 months ago:
Yeah, that’s it: you can get some of that stuff from some fruits, but you’re looking at a lot of avocados!
Bacteria synthesise B12 inside various animals. Even our gut flora synthesise it, but they do it too far down our digestive system to be useful!
- Comment on Can we have a healthy life only with fruits or fruits and plants combined alone, and if not why? 3 months ago:
You can’t live on fruit alone because you need vitamin B12, which you can only get from animal products or supplements. Fruit is generally low in carbohydrates, fats and proteins, all of which you need to live!
- Submitted 3 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 13 comments
- Comment on 'It's Time for a Debate About Who Owns Our Media' Says Leader of the UK's Trade Union Movement 3 months ago:
The TUC should start a newspaper (online, presumably, but that’s not the point) again, like the Daily Herald used to be, and do podcasts etc., as well as having a joined up social media strategy. There needs to be a worker-backed alternative to the corporate news and just the odd little co-op here and there doesn’t cut it (great though those are).
- 'It's Time for a Debate About Who Owns Our Media' Says Leader of the UK's Trade Union Movementbylinetimes.com ↗Submitted 3 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 4 comments
- Submitted 3 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 1 comment
- Comment on Is it possible to be a leftist, but still really enjoy capitalism? 4 months ago:
Aside from your odd definition of capitalism and its outcomes, which other people have addressed, the answer to the headline question is: yes.
Karl Marx, for example, is famously very critical of what he saw as the inherent exploitation in capitalism. He believed that you could not have capitalism without exploitation and that it was therefore an unethical system that should be defeated and superseded by a new economic system without exploitation. He also held that capitalism was inherently contradictory and that it therefore not only should be destroyed, but that it must be destroyed.
However: even Marx acknowledged that capitalism was an enormous improvement on the previously existing social system of feudalism, because it also produced far greater wealth through the development of new technology (this is a key difference between Marxism and the earlier ‘utopian socialism’, which saw technology itself as an evil, and which his theories largely replaced).
Marx also welcomed the fact that capitalism destroyed (as he saw it) some earlier forms of oppression (albeit while introducing new ones). Marx’s letter to Abraham Lincoln congratulating him on his re-election discusses the American Revolution and Civil War in precisely these terms.
So, you can enjoy the greater (obviously not ‘infinite’!) abundance of goods that capitalism has produced, you can acknowledge its positive impact on technological development and its material improvements of the lives of millions of people and be not only a leftist but a fully orthodox Marxist… just so long as you also acknowledge that capitalism is also an exploitative and self-destructive force that should, can and must be defeated.