Bulletins and News Discussion from July 24th to July 30th, 2023 - Venezuela's 4,600,000th House

The Great Housing Mission of Venezuela, launched in 2011 by Hugo Chavez, is the most ambitious housing project in the country's history. This week, the 4,600,000th house was built, with a goal for 5 million homes by 2024 and beyond. The program has built 1,255 residential complexes on a total of 9,837 hectares, an area equivalent to six times the Swiss city of Geneva.

The program additionally provides social infrastructure like schools, subsidized food markets, and recreational and green spaces. Over 70% of constructions are self-managed by communities, with financial and logistics support from the government. Communities also provide each other with materials - from each according to their supplies, to each according to their needs. Russian, Chinese, and Belarusian companies have helped supply the program over the years.

In Antímano Parish in southwestern Caracas, a group of predominantly women came together in 2015 and trained in construction, cleared land, and then built apartments while under the pressure of food and materials shortages and electricity blackouts due to the United States' sanctions campaign.

Claudia Tisoy, a mother and self-trained plumber, said “This goes beyond building homes for our families, we are also building the future of our country, with women leading the way. This is what the socialist horizon is all about.”^VA

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

This week's first update is here in the comments.

This week's second update is here in the comments.

This week's third update is here in the comments.

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Been thinking about the whole alien hearings thing because my friend groups have been discussing it and I've tried to push back on this obvious crank nonsense (without much success, they basically now seem to be in the "aliens are real and the US government has crashed ships" hype train) but I have noticed that all of this discussion is just part of the wider campaign, whether intended by the state or fully organic or a mix of both, to put conspiracy theories into the mainstream.
Like, I've observed how the coronavirus discussion among liberals has shifted over time to essentially the exact same position that the chuds had in the first months of the pandemic that all of us laughed at, though with perhaps a little kinder language. That the lockdowns are a bad Orwellian 1984 nightmare and, hm, maybe it was released by China after all! And there's the more "lib-friendly" conspiracy theories like aliens and then the more "chud-friendly" ones about vaccines and such. The lib-friendly ones tend to be less annoying and directly impactful to our lives than the chud ones I find at least. Thinking that we've been visited by aliens matters less to me than sticking ivermectin up your ass.
99% of the time when I have these conversations and I've said my piece, I don't really continue arguing because like, who actually really gives a shit? It's just a continuation of the harmful urge of "No, I MUST keep going, somebody is WRONG on the INTERNET" if I start yelling at them about how aliens aren't real. So if they're still like "Yeah but aliens! US government! This new dude seems to be trustworthy, this is different to the previous 50 dudes who also seemed that way before being proven wrong!" then I'm just like "Okay, fine, whatever," because whether somebody close to me believes in aliens or ghosts or skinwalkers doesn't really affect me 99.9% of the time, and they clearly have their position cemented and I can't change that, and I have my position cemented and they probably won't be able to shift me either. But I've noticed that I'm having these conversations increasingly frequently, which is concerning. at least they're generally fairly socially progressive so that's nice. idk if anybody can relate.
- Conspiracy theories are prevalent in cultures where the people don't have or feel they don't have any real control over society. It's not a good indicator for your society when they become more prevalent. It's essentially a coping mechanism.
  Also yes, I find myself both hearing conspiratorial thinking more often, and I find people seem to be more receptive to traditional "leftist" conspiracies nowadays (Gladio, Bush did 9/11, etc).
  
  yeah exactly, if anything the vibe I get from my friends is like "Aliens are real but who cares because we're in hellworld" (the liberal conception where hellworld is defined by Trump existing, not the socialist conception of capitalist fuckery)
  and is "Bush did 9/11" really a traditional leftist conspiracy? I haven't really thought about its origins before because I didn't really care compared to the massive massacres unleashed on the Middle East before and after it but I only ever hear either disaffected chuds or libertarians talk about it nowadays, but now that I think about it, at the time only leftists would be interested in a critique that had less to do with Muslim jihadists (extremely understandably given the hate crimes unleashed against Muslim populations within the West and the aforementioned wars)? huh.
  
  "Left-coded" is maybe the more correct way to describe it, but conspiracy theory culture in the US has changed a lot in the past two decades. Back when 9/11 happened, The X-Files were still on TV and a lot of conspiracy theories were much more "left coded" than they are today. The two general flavors of government conspiracy theories were "the government is run by open/secret fascists and they are behind everything," or "the government is run by secret communists and they are behind everything," and 9/11 conspiracy theories fell much more into the former.
  
  the government is run by open/secret fascists
  another flavor back then, that i'm embarrassed to say I bought into as a young tween, was the David Icke theory about the government being run by lizard people
  
  I have always viewed the lizard people thing as people trying to cope with the fact we are ruled by psychopaths. They might as well be lizard people, they have no emotions.
- My biggest worry is not if but when is climate change denialism not just getting into the mainstream(again? it never left?) but becoming acceptable and repeated as true.
  Specialy when the topic of climate justice or even just having western countries be the first ones to take drastic measures. This will be fought against on the basis that "climate change is a Chinese/Russian agenda to make the west poorer" basicaly.
  While I think we can agree that for now at least libs are favorable towards the climate(only because the tech/green industry can only get subsidies from Dems basicaly) the question is what will it take to turn that around.
  As you pointed out about COVID here my couple of safe bets for the 2050-75 era:
  1- Western liberals will become strong eco-fascists, they'll repeat the same talking points we laugh about today over population etc. They'll claim BRICS are responsible because they use coal or export oil or some shit, China "consumes too much" etc...
  2- If you made a list of most likely causes for WW3, between Ukraine, Taiwan or something else I'd easily rank trade disputes/attempts at blockades of essential resources as almost a safe sure bet over anything else. The US will try to blockade fuel or food to China, at first it will be sanctions and it will escalate from there.
  
  The modus operandi of non-communists is deny, deny, deny. Things they recognize as bad (climate change, COVID, white supremacy, poverty, etc.) can't be solved by their ideology, so they are forced to construct their own alternate reality or become a socialist. Yes, denial can range between "Yeah COVID is airborne but masks are annoying 😅" and "COVID-19 is a bioweapon made by CCP-Israeli agents, and also it's fake!!" but the first one still makes a conceit to creating an imaginary world and makes it easier to make larger and larger denials in the future.
- I’ve very much gotten the similar vibe from this but it’s hard to articulate.
  It’s as though they want to channel discontent into very bizarre outlets that are entirely non-threatening because of how fucking stupid they are.
  There is a surface level of anti-system discontent, “they’re lying to us about aliens” or “don’t make me wear a mask”, but because these “problems” are so fake the anti-system angst can actually be harnessed by the system to reinforce itself.
  Like, it’s such basic misdirection it seems to simple to be true but that seems to be what this is to me. It’s sensational and actually harmless to power.
  There’s even a release valve built into this conspiracism. If you’re really angry about being forced to wear a mask, then the deep end of that paranoia tells you it’s China that’s ultimately to blame. Or if you’re really worried about UFO technology, then there’s the implication that Russia and China also have access to it so you better support greater funding for high tech jet technology.
  People are really angry at a system that is not working for the common benefit and the system is responding with “look! Behind you! Omg that thing behind you!!”
  It’s that fucking simple?
- Conspiracy theories do several things:
  Erode trust between individual and government.
  Hide the real reasons for various things. Leading people into muddle-thinking.
  Decrease the evidence requirement people have for issues.
  All lead into right wing thought.
  Fill up mental bandwidth.
  There are many extremely obvious reasons that the US government would want all of these.
  Erosion of trust between individual and government benefits neoliberal ideology.
  Hiding real reasons for things happening decreases the impact of correct propaganda put out by the left.
  Lower evidence requirements for topics makes it easier and easier for the US gov to manipulate the population.
  Obviously they want people to move right rather than left. Believing in conspiracy theories is step one to believing in illuminati which is another step towards believing that jews control everything and creating more fascists for the US gov to use for whatever.
  Mental bandwidth being full of conspiracy nonsense pushes out materialist and marxist thought. It is distinctly anti-materialist, because it relies on zero evidence.
  I also think that some of this is the US gov doing test runs for the impact of witness testament (with no other evidence) on the population. The impact of things like this demonstrates just how much people are willing to believe based solely on witness testament with zero other evidence. And if you can do that then you can tell the population whatever the fuck you want and get them to believe whatever the fuck you want. These kinds of things could be dry runs for something made up that is used as a catalyst for war.
  
  Hide the real reasons for various things. Leading people into muddle-thinking.
  This makes controlling the domestic population easier, but it isn't a long term solution because fundamentally, you can't cultivate the next generation of world class physicists, engineers, and scientists if half the population believes the Earth is a 6000 year old flat disk. This is not to say compartmentalization isn't a thing, but you can't simultaneously be a world class expert in astronomy and rocketry and believe the Earth is flat. Not for long, anyways. Eventually, one thing would have to give. You either recant your faulty idea about Earth's geography or you just become an unhinged crank.
  The US has coasted along despite having a terribly uneducated and miseducated population by taking advantage of brain drain. In essence, the world class "American" physicists, engineers, and scientists are all foreigners while the domestic population can continue believing Jesus rode on a dinosaur. However, multipolarity means all those foreigner talent have options now. The next brilliant Thai physicist can emigrate to China or Indonesia or just stay at Thailand contributing to Thai society instead of emigrating to the US. The steady decline of the US also means the US will lean harder towards racism and those foreign talent will flee the country. At a certain point, that Thai physicist is not going to set foot on US soil because they don't want to be lynched by a Sinophobic mob. We are already seeing this with Chinese scientists, and this is why I don't think the US will succeed with their strategy of moving TSMC to the US.
  The only place the US can still parasitically suck talent dry and not have the domestic population lynch them because they are "stealing jobs" is Europe, which means there will be a further intensifying of brain drain from Europe as Europe's economic prospects decline. And while Europeans aren't as propagandized as USians and thus more moored with material reality, who knows how long that will last as Europe further declines and anyone with any form of technical expertise has emigrated to the US? Between the UK's complete obsession with trans people and Germany's nuclearphobia to the point of thinking burning coal is somehow better, Europe is becoming increasingly unhinged from material reality as well. I suspect Europe will also undergo further Americanization as the US's talons sink deeper. School shootings, food saturated with HFCS, Bible-thumping Evangelicals dictating government policy, privatized healthcare, hyperindividualism, just a general societal atmosphere of crassness and contempt for people less fortunate than them. This means eventually the US can't rely on foreign European talent either since Europe has basically transformed to a mini US with all the flaws of the US.
  
  Americans have never produced world class physicists, engineers, and scientists, they'll just do what they've always done and brain-drain Europe, Africa and Asia. That country has always been build by the labor of non-americans to benefit of the wannabe hwite jeffersonian yeoman.
- https://pbs.twimg.com/ext_tw_video_thumb/1192532242708488207/pu/img/xAyZ_lSZbN030dKJ.jpg
  I just show any UFO believers this and ask why UFOs seem to be a anglo cultural phenomena, or why the aliens are racist and only visit white people
- I have friends that believe local energy drink advertisements are because of aliens now thanks to the US hearings. Motherfucker we live on the other side of the planet, how in the fuck does this even make sense.
  With regards to COVID, the excess mortality in the US right now is 6% higher than normal. Given excess mortality in the US before COVID was at around 400 000 deaths a year, this means that COVID is killing 24 000 people a year in the US, or around 66 a day. Even if that excess mortality doubles, it's still less than 50 000 deaths a year. This is about the same range/ number of deaths caused by influenza and pneumonia annually. So COVID is no longer the big killer that it was, and having this amount of death per year thanks to a virus has already been normalised, so yeah most people aren't going to care about COVID anymore in the states.
- I just find it funny that conspiracy theorists went from "aliens are real and the feds doing everything they can to smokescreen the truth!" To "aliens aren't real and the feds are doing everything they can to smokescreen the truth!"

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