It’s okay to read things multiple times, get stuck, stop and think, take a long time, etc. The fact that you’re not just blowing through the reading is a sign that you are critically engaging with the material.

Lately I’ve been reading more technical/mathematical books than socialist theory since I started engineering school, but here are some of the reading habits I’ve developed.

I very rarely ever read a book cover-to-cover in a linear fashion. For math books, I usually skim the contents, then read the preface. Then, the first pass of the book is just to learn the notation and conventions, and to get the most basic overview of what is going on. (For socialist books, this might mean how words look in the font the book uses, the structure of the book, words you’ve never seen before, definitions (especially if the author uses some words with a novel definition!), standing assumptions, and the conclusions the book makes.) Then, for the second reading, you gotta follow the proofs/arguments more carefully. And the third and subsequent readings are focused on specific sections that you figure out in previous readings that you want to take away from the book.

My preference is to read on a computer sitting at a desk, but I keep copies of basically all my books on my phone so if I’m too sad to get out of bed, or if I’m stuck waiting in line, I can read any time, anywhere, basically anything.

Personally, I prefer dark mode, to the point that I invert the color of my PDFs. (In Okular, I usually use the “invert lightness” option. The default “invert” option makes blues oranges, greens reds, etc., which is annoying for color diagrams.) I personally like to read while listening to tech metal in the coldest room I can find. (Music silences the “head voice”, i.e. if you’re reading this right now you are probably imagining how it sounds. This slows down your reading; you can read a little faster than you process speech. I pick tech metal because it’s a subset of what I like, it’s energetic which gives me the energy to keep reading, but it’s proggy as fuck so it makes me feel smart 🤓. If you don’t want to have your ears melted off, try some jazz. IMO make sure you have at least 24 hours of study music on hand. For some people, music makes it way way worse, so be careful 😆) I just picked up some noise cancelling headphones and even with no music, it’s so fucking helpful to be able to actively cancel some of the outside noise. And I like to read away from my room/bed whenever possible.

IMO the key here is: make yourself comfortable when you read. And only you know what makes you comfortable 😄. Reading should be fun!

If I get stuck on an equation or passage in any reading, I will spend a finite amount of time racking my brain and the Internet trying to get through it under my own power. (First reading, up to about 5 minutes. Second reading, up to about 30 minutes. Subsequent readings, however much time I have left to read, since I probably decided to read the section to nail down the equation/passage I’m having trouble with.) IMO thinking through problems is a hugely important part of reading and just life, but the thing with books is that sometimes, your question gets answered later in the book. E.g., in pure math books, authors sometimes define objects before they tell you (or you figure out from context) why that definition matters or what it aims to encode.

Hope this helps.

No lol, it’s basically Reddit 2.0 and I don’t mean that as a complement 😆

More like all of us 🥴

Yeah I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at them. Sorry if I came off that way. I’m trying to be constructive but also take a firm stance against the Epstein class, you know?

Agreed, but also a broken clock is right twice a day 😆

Evil never dies 😮‍💨

Someone wants you mad at Dems right now, is how I read this one.

I mean I’m cool with that forever tbh. The Dems gave the keys of the kingdom to the orange fascist, and they are more than complicit in creating the conditions for a fascist takeover.

There’s going to be no justice at all for those in power until after a successful midterm rout.

There wasn’t justice on Epstein the last time the Dems were in power so I don’t see why we should trust them a second time 🤷‍♂️

Nah fuck the Clintons. Fuck them for this Epstein shit, but fuck them for all the legal/“legitimate” things they’ve done too. Infinite negative sympathy for monsters.

Liquefy ICE

Nah, this is some rando’s slop OS. I would never use it but it’s whatever.

The real “kill it with fire” VibeOS is this homonymous monstrosity, which supposedly lets Claude Code control everything in your computer 😆

Yes because your image has been projected onto my flat screen.

God willing 🙏

Rest in power ✊

See my other comment.

I mean both of these micronations do claim to have seceded from the nations that surround them. And unless you’re thinking of starting a micronation in one of the few remaining terrae nullius, i.e. land so shit that no one wants it, secession is a necessary part of building a new nation.

IMO nationalism is a way for weirdos to roleplay as important people and isn’t really a serious solution for anything. Micronations are just a pitiful facsimile of that. Like even people who like states see micronations as not worth recognizing.

If by “government” you mean “autonomous anarchist community” and by “micronation” you mean “freely associated federated network of autonomous communities” and by “United States” you mean “the stolen land occupied by the AmeriKKKan settler-colonial project”, then yes.

Jissouri

I hope they hang the Clintons. 🤡-on-🤡 violence as far as I’m concerned.

Yo they’re so fucking guilty holy shit 😂😂😂

Based, get rekt Nazi scum