Without any particular order: Lemmy, Mastodon, Bookwyrm.

According to the book “Anatomy of an Epidemic” SSRIs (antidepressants) improve patient symptoms slightly in the short term compared to those who are not medicated. However, in the long term:

1. They do not solve the problem of anxiety/depression at the symptomatic level.

2. They hinder the patient’s recovery and turn them into a chronic depressive or anxious individual.

In my experience, since I started taking SSRIs, I have been having more panic attacks, even though initially, about 5 years ago, they seemed to improve my symptoms of social anxiety and sadness.

Check this out: https://robertwhitakerbooks.com/anatomy-of-an-epidemic/antidepressantsdepression/

Although I still have material to read, my current thought is the following: Trotsky was closer to the Mensheviks than to the Bolshevik faction; or if you prefer, his approach was situated somewhere between both currents. If he joined the Bolshevik faction, it was out of pure pragmatism.

If you read Lenin in ‘What Is to Be Done?’ or ‘The State and Revolution,’ you will see how he criticizes the Russian social democrats of that time, from the opportunist branch (referring among others to the Mensheviks and similar), for wanting to collaborate with the government and divert the proletariat from the path of revolution. Stalin does nothing more than follow the path started by Lenin.

Hence, the ‘orthodox’ thought of Marxism sees Trotsky as a revisionist/reformist.

I would just like to remind you of the following sentence from Karl Marx: ‘The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.’

The material conditions of capitalism will evolve towards a state in which the contradictions between classes are reflected with high intensity. The middle classes tend to proletarianization, due to the concentration of capital in the hands of a few bourgeois and to competitiveness. We must create class consciousness so that when the time comes, if we have done a good job, we can reap the fruits and finally establish socialism. This means pointing out the causes and origins of injustices, always proposing a political solution.

Me too. I started smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol until I got sick with schizophrenia; it was then that I had to stop using cannabis. Now I occasionally drink beer; but above all, I consume a lot of caffeine, in my case in the form of energy drinks.