Nonfiction:

First pass: Slow, deliberate, digest each word. A simple annotation system. ! for passages that are thought provoking. Arrow for major details and connections to other details. ? for… Take a guess.

Immediately after the chapter/section: jot down what u recall (thesis, conclusion, details, dates, names). Summarize. ~10 minutes

Day or two later: Flip thru your annotations, look thru your notes. Fill in the gaps.

Repeat if desired! Our neural pathways must be well-trodden, but it can be optimized! Open to revisions 😤

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Imo, mandatory reading. Incredibly informative, enraging, and educational. Very “readable.”

Housing is a commodity and an asset that “must” rise in value. Plentiful, accessible housing, or really any inelastic demand, tends to go against the desires of owners.

the illustration is a bit of an oversimplification, but I think a redeemable takeaway is that the rhetoric changes depending on which side (western) capital is supporting.

I think the main obstacle is finding the energy to do this. All of the energy that is accessible to us on Earth comes from the Sun, in one way or another (deep sea critters notwithstanding). If this robot can die, which it would have to for this to be indefinite, then it’s possible (eventually it would run out of iron, technically) if it could recycle old parts.

Ofc, a fossil fueled process is not indefinite, it would have to use a combination of clean energy to get through all the unique challenges of each method.

Honestly, this is kind of a first principles thermodynamics problem that applies to humanity in a similar way, one we are not answering with sustainability in mind… No way around the Laws of Thermo!

“I’m not gonna engage in the theater”

Proceeds to make it more and more theatrical with every word

Haha, I mean, I’m not really disagreeing with your sentiment that the US has caused unprecedented suffering, domestically and abroad. Duh. But the math isn’t mathing; democracy is clearly eroding in the US. We don’t have proportional representation, corporations fight policies at the fuckin municipal level, power is just not actually in the hands of the people. It only looks like the citizens voted for this if one thinks the people have at least as much power as capital. Trump is not popular, yet he is in power. I see Trump as a natural continuation of what happens over time when capital crushes unions, guts social services, replaces anything and everything possible with a for-profit option. Not natural as in good, but can we really be surprised? It woulda been more surprising if Harris had won, imo, and it’s not like we woulda stopped funding the Palestinian genocide, or “securing” the southern border.

It sounds more like you are the one who is butthurt and content on pointing fingers in a direction that isn’t at the top. I’d bet my left nut that Canadian capital isn’t complaining about the dominance of capital in general. Idk if I’d put Canada on that much a higher pedestal.

I’m not saying “don’t be mad at the US” or anything like that. But you opened with charged language of “fuck 'em all” and whatnot. I get that the actions of Trump has been negatively affecting Canada and the rest of the world, as the US is the global hegemon and the world runs on the US dollar. I’m saying THAT is the problem. While we struggle within the US against this, it makes it actively harder to resist when the rest of the world accepts the “protection” of US empire.

So… No? But yes to genocide of the people in the US? Still confused as to why you’re so angry towards the struggling, deliberately misguided and exploited working class people instead of the capitalist elite.

Do you think all Germans should’ve been genocided because of the Nazi’s actions?

Pour one out for international solidarity ig

Under global capitalism, ofc there’s gonna be a brutal top dawg, that’s the name of the game, and yes, American capital has been unimagineably violent. But not without an inner circle that gets a dash of the spoils, too. That’s what that other guy was saying. Nations that have good trade deals with the US, simply materially benefit from the exploitation of the global south.

We’re on a knife edge, of capital being threatened with a crisis it doesn’t really know how to get itself out of. Not without violence and repression, at least. These moments are also windows of opportunity, when capital shows its face, as a genocidal engine. Don’t do their work for them, sheesh.