Can you help me understand how the whole fediverse thing works? It seems more decentralized than reddit.

Can we still say ‘Amerikkkrakker’?

Related, but does anyone know how much truth their is to the idea that Vavilov was sent to the gulags because of his opposition to Lashekoism?

This is exactly the kind of mindset I’ve been trying to adopt. Being able to see the deep interconnection in the world and seeing how everything is related in connection and change. Trying to apply it to myself has been difficult. Sometimes it feels like my body/mind fights back against this too, there are times when I’ve felt I’ve made progress on this, but then, somewhere in my brain, for some reason, i feel forced to contemplate specific organs of my body, such as my heart, and how that might feel to go out, and then the anxiety gets going, and then it feels like there’s actually some sharpness in the heart itself, and then I worry about dying and go down that rabbit hole.

Agreed. I feel like the second paragraph you had there, is exactly what i was referring to. I feel like I can say that pretty easily, and do feel like I honestly believe it, but when push comes to shove in a moment of emotional intensity regarding death, that whole thing just crumbles before me and is replaced with “but I don’t want to die”. Some sort of “clinging” to life.

The limitations of existence makes it meaningful

That is a very good take away.

You’re honestly probably right. Maybe it is having this image of myself in my head, that when the time comes, I shouldn’t let the emotions overwhelm me, and I should be able to remain stoic and “exit the world with dignity” or something like that.

Agreed. I do think the ideas present within Vedanta and Zen Buddhism (the only two that I’ve studied to any extent) do have some really cool ideas that have a lot of overlap with scientific socialism and Marxism. Specifically stuff like Indra’s Net, or anything that stresses that “things aren’t really things, but things are the relationships between things”, if that makes sense. Just the stuff that stresses interconnection and nuance, i find that I can really appreciate and see a lot of crossover with systems science and Marxism. Also, Swami Vivekanda has written some very interesting texts on Socialism based on his time in the USSR, which I found pretty interesting.

I do agree religion isn’t the end all, be all, and i generally have disdain for religion, i do find that those philosophies have a lot to be appreciated, especially when compared to the purely black and white thinking of abrahamic religion.

Maybe for me, it is that idea of “clinging” to life, and struggling with that.

In terms of afterlife, I would say I’m agnostic. When i say I have appreciation for the Dharmic religions, I don’t mean that I believe in the supernatural aspects of those religions, more that I appreciate the philosophical undertones present within them. Specifically stuff like Indra’s Net, or anything that stresses that “things aren’t really things, but things are the relationships between things”, if that makes sense. Just the stuff that stresses interconnection and nuance, i find that I can really appreciate and see a lot of crossover with systems science and Marxism. Also, Swami Vivekanda has written some very interesting texts on Socialism based on his time in the USSR, which I found pretty interesting.

I do agree religion isn’t the end all, be all, and i generally have disdain for religion, i do find that those philosophies have a lot to be appreciated, especially when compared to the purely black and white thinking of abrahamic religion.