It’s both, pertaining to the dialectics and the materialism. But it’s not simply mushing the two together to make them into a neat ball. Dialectical materialism compared to its hegelian idealist form has different laws or rules that emerge.

Explaining black holes with dialectics is possible, it’s just we may not be able to explain them yet. I can see a black hole as the negation to… gravity, probably? Light? I’m not sure even the most advanced research on black holes could tell us for sure how exactly it fits within diamat. And things don’t exist in isolation but in relations, which the sum of it forms what we call nature. We are as much part of the natural world as black holes, the planets, the mountains and the animals, and subject to its universal laws all the same.

It can be helpful because darkness is not the negation to light, as negation/contradiction is not the direct opposite/antonym. The contradiction of light/photons is not solved by “the absence of photons” (darkness), it’s solved by its negation - so what negates light/photons? So like I can see people trying to apply dialectics to stuff around them to get a feel for it.

Conversely at times diamat can help us analyze where the material conditions stand, and at times can help us determine a trajectory. Actually it can do both but philosophy is tough lol, it’s tough to go from “I read about this example of dialectics in motion” to “this is my own analysis of the current situation” and this is why there’s so much mistaken dialectics. I probably make a lot of mistakes too.

When Mao analyzed that Japan was an empire on the decline (On Protracted Warfare if I’m not mistaken) he based his analysis on the material conditions in Japan, these conditions themselves subject to dialectics, and from that was able to analyze their trajectory and how he foresaw the war progressing.

Contradictions are the motor of change as they explain not only that change is possible but the mechanism to how it happens. It explains why we don’t live in a metaphysical (static) universe. But as Marx said The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living, and this is true of dialectics as well. We inherit the current material conditions (of nature - which includes but is not limited to society) we live under, but also have the power to resolve these contradictions. When applied to social life we call it historical materialism (it’s not just “applying diamat to history”, it refers specifically to social life as per Stalin)

A good diamatical analysis is powerful, but it’s tough to make a good one. It usually comes about after a process of collective struggle, unearthing the dialectic over trial and error and struggling with the material.

ETFs are much more comfortable for most people because it’s a “set and forget” type of thing. A company can even trade them for you and manage your portfolio, but of course it remains the market and some risk is associated with it. The typical plan is to save 3-6 months of wages, budget your monthly expenses, and then set 10-20% of your remaining wage into the market. It’s something you do for the long haul, like when you’ll need it in 10-15 years for a big purchase (as if we can still afford those lol).

This is a huge question and at the same time a very small one. I’m not saying this pejoratively, it’s a good question to ask and I think pretty much everyone when they first start reading about marxism think about this question.

It’s wide because there’s so much you could say, and it’s “small” because conversely it feels like there is very little to say about it. It has mostly been settled and yet even years after first asking myself this question I keep finding new answers. This is why there isn’t really a final, settled answer to it.

Anyway. A big component imo is how you make that money. In your post you seized on this; (I hope I don’t sound like I’m talking down to you, rather since you seem new to marxism I want to provide the basis) you said you don’t want to start a business an exploit people, so you already have an inkling of what it means to be a business owner: you will have to exploit people. But there’s more to it than that, it changes your material conditions. If you want to succeed in the market, you will have to exploit employees. There’s a lot of fairytales being told from liberals about opening a business but the reality of it is in late-stage capitalism such as this there’s no two ways about it. If you want to survive, you must exploit them. You must be ruthless on the market. Business is business, it’s not friendship. This simple act of opening a business changes your material conditions and thus changes your entire psychology. If you were not a greedy person before, you will be. It’s either that or the business goes bankrupt.

It’s the same issue I have with workers coops (there’s a few around the world). They may very well give democracy in the workplace but then they find out quickly the imperatives of the market come first, and they mold their own decisions to the requirements of capitalism. The team may really want to work on a project they’re passionate about next, but what they need is a sellable product, so they’ll “democratically decide” to make the marketable product instead.

But business owners are bourgeois. What about other forms of making money? I don’t hide that I generally don’t have a very high opinion of streamers with a patreon, marxists-for-sale I call them lol (actually that’s wrong I have never used that term before today but I’m coining it now). It’s not that I dislike any streamer/youtuber instantly, it’s that you can be as selfless as one can be, you can be the most generous person in the world, you can be basically an example of virtue for the ages…

Eventually you’ll have to make money. If you go down that route, no matter how good your intentions were at the beginning, you start censoring yourself, downplaying marxism (a very bad thing to do since it makes your speech no more radical than social-democrats), or treating your artisanal production like a business – artisans being independent workers who believe they can still do everything by themselves to cut down on costs (and thus maximize profits) and keep the operation “simple”. A lot of so-called communist creators for example lock educational content (when they do make it) behind a paywall. But isn’t the point to educate and agitate the masses to make them class-conscious? Or is class-consciousness only allowed for a fan club that can afford your subscription fee? Everyone wants to be Stephen King and everyone thinks they can do it without writing mass-appeal penny press all year long. But there’s a reason he’s successful and the “craft” authors are not.

Anyway. There is psychology at play, for lack of a better word, about one’s class perception. And consciousness often lags behind material reality. You can still consider yourself a prole while you own a business and you make 3x more than your employees - yes, it happens lol. “Oh but I only make 3x more, most CEOs make 10-100 times more!” – deep down they know that’s an excuse. They feel that because they own the business or “took the risk”, they deserve more. And then their consciousness starts to change.

My comment is getting long lol but basically, it’s about your actual class position. And in recent years this has become obfuscated by the bourgeoisie who tries to buy out the proletariat (at least in the imperial core). For example, it’s getting easier every year to invest in the stock market. Sometimes they offer deals to buy houses (subprimes anyone?). And while we do make a lot of money in the west compared to the rest of the world, costs of living are also high.

So that’s why I say it’s not such a settled question. Where is the line between being a prole with some means, and a bourgeois? I don’t even think you have to give all your money away to the party or anything. How do you treat people at your job? Do you take the opportunity to agitate them? What about outside of work?

Build a 3-6 months wage rainy day fund, if possible, and then budget how you spend the rest of your money including a monthly contribution to the party or something. Despite what it might seem like I don’t even tell comrades to avoid the stock market - this is because banks (which we basically have to use in the modern day) already invest your money, and whereas they might make 10% return on it they only give you something like 0.75% of it. I’d rather invest in ETFs myself and get an average of 2-5% return instead of giving it away to my bank is the logic. And don’t expect that you will become rich off of this alone (the stock market is not meant for people like us to make money), so don’t start making it your whole thing and “beating the market” to make a payday or something. To me it’s just part of smart planning for your future.

And even that wall of text barely scratches the surface. I could talk about communists who suddenly find themselves owning an apartment or house (inheritance) and don’t know what to do with it.

We host basically anything we can get our hands on

Maybe here, check if we have something that strikes your fancy… https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Category:Library_works_about_history

For everyone that likes how lemmygrad feels, be sure to do your best to keep it that way!! Culture can only be cultivated if everyone participates in it.

If you make anonymous edits, we judge them individually. It’s better to make a bunch of smaller edits instead of one big one because we only have one button to accept or reject the proposed edit, so if it’s a bigger one and there’s just one thing we reject it for, it’s basically all lost. Otherwise you can make all sorts of edits and editors will look at them as they enter a moderation queue. There’s not really any limits as to what type of edits you can make, as long as everything is accompanied with a reference. And of course since we write from an ML perspective there’s no need to try and be “unbiased” like wikipedia - I say that because we’ve had to reject some edits that were trying to be too both sidesy. There’s a short guide to anon edits: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/ProleWiki:How_to_make_anonymous_edits

Let me know if you have any questions, but the editing process itself should be self-explanatory. As for pages you can add stuff to existing pages e.g. Russian Federation.

You can either request an account or make anonymous edits, in which case your IP gets leaked (but you can use a vpn). Note all claims must have a reference attached.

https://criticalresist.substack.com/p/dont-get-it-wrong-ukraine-and-israel-f79

This is the oldest mosque in China, and possibly one of the oldest ones still existing in the world. The Huaisheng Mosque, in Guangzhou. It was built by an uncle of Muhammad around the year 627. Islam has been present in China since its inception.

The lines you quote come from a document from the State Council Information Office of the Chinese government. So when the document says that religious extremists (in the document) overgeneralize the halal concept, they mean overgeneralize. This is a document written by the Chinese government for their own conditions. Halal medication exists, and that medication is available in China. China even has a word for halal (Qingzhen), so the concept is not foreign to them.

China has a halal label:

And applying for the label happens at the local (provincial) level, and the company applying for it has to employ a representative who follows halal habits depending on which industry they are in. This page has more details.

Xinjiang does not belong to the Uyghurs or Islam; it is home to many native populations and since a long time ago (far before the PRC) has been an inseparable part of China. Uyghur extremists cannot claim that only their way goes, but this is what they tried to do through ETIM and other separatist movements. A part that you somehow did not quote from the prolewiki page, right before the halal sentence you quoted:

They abuse those who do not follow the path of extremism as pagans, traitors and scum, urging their followers to verbally assault, reject, and isolate non-believers, Party members and officials, and patriotic religious individuals. They deny and reject all forms of secular culture, preaching a life without TV, radio and newspaper, forbidding people to weep at funerals or laugh at weddings, imposing bans on singing and dancing, and forcing women to wear heavily-veiled black long gowns.

They [ETIM] are forcing people, Muslim and non-Muslim, to conform to their specific way of things. Muslims in China have evolved their own customs and practices. Some women veil, some don’t. There is no obligation in Chinese law to do so. Uyghurs even traditionally produce wine.

I’m not sure how you can quote those lines above but completely gloss over the very next part which lists some of the deadly attacks that have happened between 1990 and 2014.

Does this look like genocide and repression to you?

It’s not in any way comparable to what’s happening to Gaza.

Again I don’t know how you can read this:

abetting them to “die for their belief in order to enter heaven”.

And come away thinking:

Has very much similar energy to western stereotypes about suicide bombers and 77 virgins.

Unless you are looking for a specific conclusion. the ProleWiki page (or the Information Office white paper) has examples of attacks in the very next section, just a bit further down: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Xinjiang_Vocational_Education_and_Training_Centers#Examples_of_terrorist_attacks. ETIM is using people and convincing them to attack civilian centers at the cost of their own life, while the people who put them up to this safe in their mansions outside of China. Who benefits from this? Not the attacker or the people they killed. The only people benefiting from this are the ETIM leaders who will do it again with another poor sap. I hope we both agree this does not represent islam.

What should China do? Follow in “Israel’s” footsteps? Bomb Urumqi, bomb Pakistan like the US has been doing (and then in 2020 Pompeo said “actually soz guys etim doesn’t exist” which begs the question who have they been bombing for the past 15 years?) Or attack the causes of radicalization at the root. They chose the latter.

There have been no more terrorist attacks since 2016 since they started this vocational centers program by the way. It shows a model that effectively wins against at least one form of radicalization without killing anyone in the process.

after almost two years of the world watching the genocide in Palestine and the justifications used for it, even the most obtuse of us are intimately acquainted with Islamophobia.

Exactly, Gaza shows us the logical conclusion of islamophobia. Where are the refugees from Xinjiang? The journalists risking their lives to show the missile strikes or mass arrests in Urumqi and villages? The gofundmes for Uyghurs? There’s new videos coming out of Gaza every hour of the day but Xinjiang, a place much more populated and much bigger, has none. These videos don’t exist, because Uyghurs in China are not being genocided or repressed to a point that counts as being ethnically targeted. If we want to help muslims then we must focus on real problems, not invented ones for the purpose of regime change operations. Anyone harping on about Uyghur genocide after 2 years of Gaza is not focusing on the real issue and is distracting from an actual genocide - I’m not saying anyone here is, just in general. People like Mike Pompeo, for example.

ETIM is not Hamas, the two are completely different.

57 might be possible! I always forget the number and the actual name they use in China for it. I think it also depends on how you count but for all intents and purposes the CPC’s recognized number is probably 57

I think I also talk at length about ETIM and Xinjiang in this piece, though it’s not the focus: https://criticalresist.substack.com/p/independent-ngos-and-whitewashing. The World Uyghur congress is also an important player in the narrative: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/World_Uyghur_Congress

https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Xinjiang_Vocational_Education_and_Training_Centers

The genocide narrative has thoroughly been debunked. I get where your partner is coming from and I assume they’re not an ML from how you speak about it. In regards to white western leftists I mean all people I know are with Palestine (even the apolitical libs) and what took place in Xinjiang looks nothing like it. Most of the narrative around the genocide was crafted by white people in fact - they’re named in the link. It’s a clear example of manufacturing consent for later use. If I’m not mistaken Lebanon was part of signatories that defended china’s policy in Xinjiang because like I said, the (western) alternative is to bomb them all. That’s how we’ve been “fighting” terrorism.

There are other Muslim minorities in China and somehow these were never mentioned, because they weren’t going through repression, but why would China only focus on uyghurs if the problem is religion? Why did the Hui not protest with their Uyghur ummah? If they did, we would have heard about it.

China is clear that the Chinese nation encompasses all of the ethnic minorities (37 or 57 are recognized because I think at some point they had to group some together. There’s literally hundreds in China) and even historically China just was not racist. Buddhism spread in China through India and quickly took over the country, with emperors not trying to put a stop to it. When Christians came they were allowed in some port towns to proselytize, but that was more of a trade protectionism thing and every European had to stay in those ports - and they were right, for only a few years later the tea bush was stolen from China, then silk was stolen too, then opium was introduced because the UK was literally bankrupting itself buying from China.

There are so called Han people (I’m still not convinced it’s an actual thing lol) right now that speak Tibetan better than Tibetans.

Were there excesses? I mean, possibly. I don’t think they were widespread enough that Uyghurs would want to topple the regime over it. They are also not the masters or Xinjiang and the only ethnic minority that comes from Xinjiang. Carl Zha is documenting his trip through Xinjiang right now on twitter and nobody is being oppressed. Xinjiang is now safer - ETIM terrorists don’t discriminate.

https://criticalresist.substack.com/p/the-blueprint-of-regime-change-operations

and to a lesser extent https://criticalresist.substack.com/p/independent-ngos-and-whitewashing

The section meritocracy, martyrdom & mystification was especially profound. good read.

Lemmy.world - Reddit but more acutely Reddit than Reddit itself, because those that dislike Reddit don’t sign up for it but instead choose other instances. Overwhelmingly liberal, mods and admins lean Zionist.

They made a skin that looks like old reddit to give you an idea

Orgs in the west in general are just not that great. Frso rejects the settler colonial character of the USA as per J sykes essay on it, and they’ve been a pre-party formation for over 30 years now. The few Frso members I’ve interacted with online were very keen on recruiting new members which is not where priorities should lie for an org. Members will come if you do good work you shouldn’t have to be doing recruitment drives.

Personally I’ve been browsing Local for years so I can see all of lemmygrad. Rarely use All or federation.

they just exhaust themselves replying to 20 different people on all fronts and lemmygrad comes out of it having perfected its understanding of the issue at hand.