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@CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 3 days ago:
K.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 3 days ago:
Here’s me getting instabanned for saying billionaires aren’t very communist, to someone confused as to why OP would say they are.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 3 days ago:
So much for calm, polite discussion.
I know what you’re thinking, that’s just tone policing, but it was in OP and is the whole reason I bothered with this thread. Usually Hexbear and friends are against actual conversation as a concept.
Use whatever tone you want, I may just decide not to talk to you, since digital turd flinging is a waste of my time.
You asked if there was anything you said that I disputed. Now you’re complaining that I “ignored” some of your points. Why? That just means that I didn’t see anything to dispute. Usually, I don’t take issue with people, you know, not disagreeing with me.
Ah, so you agree. See, only mentioning what you disagree with was unclear. Maybe you’re afraid to say it explicitly, because you’ll get banned, because “NK is great” is the actual party line.
One of my earliest childhood memories is dressing up as the “great hero” Robert E. Lee to give a presentation on the Civil War, or as we called it, “The War Between the States,” or, if we were feeling cheeky, “The War of Northern Aggression.”
So, that’s racist - and exactly what I was guessing you meant - but it doesn’t say anything about the quality of what you learned about math and reading. I think it’s out of touch that you’d compare a racist school in America to conditions in the third world. Where I have family.
And that’s not even touching on the implication that everyone in DPRK must be some illiterate backwards savage.
Oh no, the elites go to the best schools.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 3 days ago:
My sense of the Cold War examples is that they happened in places that were on a kind of knife’s edge already. Like Chile - there was an existing underfunded, previously influential and endogamous military that didn’t need to much encouragement to take down Allende, electoral mandate be damned. They managed to gain influence across a lot of Latin America at the time, but there’s no comparable place now. In modern places like with unstable governments, the US has been losing ground this decade, as opposed to running the show.
If the US was secretly replacing otherwise-stable governments all over the world, it would take vast numbers of people all over and be much too hard to perfectly to cover up. France’s program in north Africa ended up an open secret, for example. You don’t need it to explain anything either; so, it’s not supported by Occam’s razor. And obviously, how could I falsify that idea? This is when it starts feeling like arguing against a conspiracy theory. Every thing you can say against it gets twisted into evidence for a successful coverup.
There’s been open interventions like Iraq and Libya, and legitimate controversy about them, but neither of those guys were remotely elected (which is what I was asking about). Intervening in the sense of throwing their weight around in lesser ways definitely happens, both in secret and in open, but China is also notorious for it, and has even taken a couple swings at Canada deep in the US sphere.
But the fact remains that the foreign policy of the US has remained fairly stable across multiple administrations from both parties, which essentially amounts to saying “promoting freedom and democracy” but in actuality promoting expanding military power around the world and expanding economic power as a result of that military presence at just about any cost.
My point there was just that a lot of the decision makers believe they’re doing something noble (and the rest just want to get re-elected). At least in my country, which is culturally very close to the US, foreign policy isn’t a deliberately self-serving enterprise. (Although the fascist/“far-right populist” movement obviously goes in exactly that direction, and claims it’s a virtue)
I don’t agree at all that it’s always BS.
The first example I was thinking of there is Venezuela. Conditions in the nation are really bad, there’s been mass migration out of it, and it’s not hard to find a Venezuelan that hates Maduro and friends. He can say it’s the CIA planting people, but even if you agree that none of the situation is actually his fault, it’s not the CIA - people do blame the current government. Same story during the Arab Spring. Really, dictators will usually say an enemy manufactured any civil unrest, and the US is the obvious choice for some of them. Others blame local rivals, and historically Jews were popular.
Also, Maduro is still in charge of Venezuela, which goes back to the knife’s edge thing. The US appears to be gearing up for an open armed invasion to dislodge him, because just the considerable public support for the opposition and whatever clandestine programs weren’t enough.
A 2021 review of the existing literature found that foreign interventions since World War II tend overwhelmingly to fail to achieve their purported objectives.[100]
Interesting, I might have to read that. In my head the banana republic coups worked like half the time, but maybe that’s just because nobody talks about the failed ones.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 3 days ago:
No.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
plus Western corporations with large presences around the world, still extracting wealth to this day.
Not as much as you’d think, honestly. For things like resources, there are corrupt deals that get funneled through places like Saychelles, but if you actually look at the savings that come out of it it’s like pennies on the Western end. Uh, [here’s one of the reports I think I read]. They’re really screwing the global poor for nothing. Meanwhile, the low-end manufacturing jobs are popular because they tend to pay better than anything else available, and are arguably lighter work than going out in the fields; nobody’s really losing there.
Western wealth comes from other Western wealth, for the most part. Solid institutions, high education rates and lots of capital, which allows all kinds of complicated industries to exist. That got started on colonialism and slavery, but it doesn’t need it to exist now.
The West cares about human rights and democracy mostly for propaganda
I’m also involved in politics. There’s legit ideology there, just like there was legit ideology in the Soviet Union.
Although the far right is a different beast, obviously. These days the US is a lot like a second China, from a Canadian perspective.
The West has overthrown democratically-elected governments and installed human-rights violating dictators plenty of times, up until recently
What are you thinking of there? I can’t really come up with anything past the 80’s. Some leaders will blame the West for their own domestic protesters, but it’s always BS. If the US couldn’t find one guy for that long they certainly can’t whip up an entire nation.
To the rest, I’ll say we both know the earlier history, and I’d probably agree the West needs taking down a peg circa 1920. The Cold War is a bit murkier, because the USSR liked a good puppet or intervention as well.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
Oh, I’ve traveled plenty and lived in more than one country. You seriously believe that there are more Westerners building wells and handing out vaccines around the world than there are trying to control other countries militarily and economically in order to extract as much wealth from them as they can? If you do believe that, I’m not sure that we will get anywhere with our discussion.
More in terms of what? TBF I’m from a relief work background, but it seems to me most Western institution don’t care enough to send people at all.
Also, the US has been involved in overthrowing dozens and dozens of governments around the world since World War II, many of them democratically elected.
That includes the period where black people literally couldn’t vote. Don’t you think the West has changed?
To pick an example on this side of the Cold War, obviously the US and a few select friends fucked up Iraq for no reason, but then again lots of people fucked up each other within the non-Western world. Russia is doing a whole lot of that right now.
The West at least cares about human rights and democracy in the abstract. And, at this moment in history, anyone else that does is probably friendly with the West. Isn’t that worth something, if our actions are, at worst, just as bad?
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
I explained elsewhere here. We’ll keep it in one place.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
If you have the chance, travel. You’ll notice a distinct lack of Westerners standing around and cracking the whip. If anything, they’re building wells and handing out vaccines.
It’s arguably the strongest faction, although China’s also up there. But, there’s still plenty of sovereignty to go around.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
No sources, because it’s a quick reply made up of what a lawyer would call “common knowledge”.
Hey, me too!
You write well for someone with minimal education. Now who’s lying?
Interesting! You’re “certain,” are you? Where does that “certainty” come from, exactly? Evidence? Or does it just “feel true” to you, based on vibes? Does it just have that certain quality of “truthiness,” to it? Does “feeling a different vibe than you” make someone a “conspiracy theorist?”
Gonna gloss over the things verifiably in the picture, as opposed to just obvious?
This is why I’m rationing my time.
Any country that’s cut off from global trade is pretty much condemned to poverty.
Why? I don’t think that’s universally true. Nor do I think it wasn’t self-inflicted here - anything to keep the peasants from rising up.
Do they? Do you have a source?
Here you go. I’d go with HuffPost, but there’s a paywall.
Here’s a picture of him with the source, who definitely wouldn’t take my call:
There’s enough elite defectors to paint a pretty good picture as well. It’s less a normal dictatorship, and more a resource colony for people who spend a lot of time in China or on private islands, at this point.
Also, does Kim Jung Un look malnourished? The malnutrition being another thing you just ignored.
This is a big part of why Vietnam introduced reforms that would make it more amenable to the West, and likewise with China. But of course, you hate them too, despite taking a different direction and being more successful, don’t you?
Hate’s a strong word. China’s a nationalist autocratic bully, but the US is going in that direction too now, and most historical nations that can be, are. Even the genocide is hardly unique.
They’re higher on the shitlist than Iceland, though.
[Rant about the US]
Cool. North Korea still sucks.
I think that’s enough for today.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
That’s a long way of agreeing they are the good guys, with room for exceptions whenever it gets too hard to defend.
How do you feel about the fact non-Westerners hate each other at least as much as they hate the West? Your community is full of Westerners, because those of us who actually have family outside know better then to make it more than just another faction.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
Not stereotypes and myths that you’ve seen passed around in your in-group that have nothing to do with me.
This is from observing entire instances. Maybe you’re lost, that’s fair.
Soo, last I checked (pre-Gaza), North Korea had the highest rates of malnutrition in the world, and most of their population received an education mainly about loving the regime. Their elections are not secret ballot at all, are just approve or disapprove, and I’m certain using the dissent box has implications. They’re vastly poorer than their southern neighbors despite being indistinguishable at the time of the Korean War. Meanwhile, their leadership lives in luxury. I see no redeeming qualities there, and it would have been better if they’d lost and just gritted their teeth through the junta years. Oh yeah, and they regularly threaten to burn down cities elsewhere with everyone inside if.
Anything wrong there?
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
But Deng is a cool anti-imperialist - to the point where saying billionaires aren’t very communist gets you instabanned. And also somehow Modi, despite the fact the two were recently sending people to bash each other with sticks over territory.
I remember back in the day there was dispute over if Assad is cool, if Assad or the actually-socialist Kurds were cooler, and if Daesh is cool too. Interesting to hear Hexbear has a carveout for Russia. .ml, at least definitely posts TASS all the time.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
If we had a real discussion, it would go like me sending evidence NK isn’t a great place, and you telling me the CIA planted it all. Or at least, that’s how it usually goes. Either I actually am in the most boring spy novel ever, or that’s conspiracy talk.
Do you want to talk about North Korea on the condition you can’t just say things are definitely fabricated without evidence? I don’t have a huge trove of stuff ready, but it won’t be hard to find, because there’s a lot of defectors and a lot of imagery.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
And see, that’s the real point of the community. You can be one of the very few Ascended Ones that knows the real truth they don’t want you to know.
I suspect OP won’t last long, because they seem to actually care.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
Everyone who’s not in the club reading is going “yeah, of course”. You can deny it if you like, not OP.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
You believe that all the anti-West countries are secretly the good guys, and are working together. We believe that’s crazy, and any open-minded read of real history and news will illustrate that.
It’s less crazy than flat earth, but mostly because physics is less fuzzy and easier to pin down. In both case the point seems to be to go against the consensus, not find the truth.
- Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies" 1 week ago:
As far as I can tell bad-faith means exactly nothing at this point, despite being used both in the anti-cm0whatever rant and here.
- Comment on I am fucking tired of this shitty behavior. 1 week ago:
Oh. Well if so, that’s true. Although if you’re not going by whole blocks the effect is limited, and can be solved by any kind of appeal process. I’m guessing most unfair bans are intentional.
- Comment on I am fucking tired of this shitty behavior. 1 week ago:
What’s the point? OP mentioned that there’s still ways around an IP ban in theory. They’re still widely used to great effect in practice.
- Comment on I am fucking tired of this shitty behavior. 1 week ago:
Most trolls don’t even know what those are, though. In my experience, making an account somewhere else is more effort than 99.9% put in already.
- Comment on The MP944 was the ‘real’ world’s first microprocessor, but it was top secret for nearly 30 years — F-14 Tomcat's chip lived in the shadow of the Intel 4004, but was eight times faster 1 week ago:
Even with the advanced flight characteristics of a modern fighter, I’d guess they don’t really need the power modern chips are capable of offering.
I mean, it’s not just fly-by-wire. If they do any signal processing in CPU or GPU they’d need power - and I’m sure they do for the higher level processing, since they’re always updating things like target identification and electronic countermeasures to keep pace.
The F-35, for example, also famously has all kinds of automatic combat information and networked communications management, and includes a display that allows pilots to virtually see through the floor. It adds up to 4 million lines of code or so. (All proprietary and controlled by America, which has made Canada’s acquisition deal a political hot potato post-Trump)
- Comment on The MP944 was the ‘real’ world’s first microprocessor, but it was top secret for nearly 30 years — F-14 Tomcat's chip lived in the shadow of the Intel 4004, but was eight times faster 1 week ago:
It’s a different time, probably normal civilian chips to hitch onto the massive industry that now exists. Kind of like how the F-14 was probably made of normal metal instead of something new they invented.
- Comment on I am fucking tired of this shitty behavior. 1 week ago:
OP did say:
Even then, it’s a moving target when the end user is determined enough.
- Comment on Racism is for poor people. Rich folks have classism. 2 weeks ago:
Too long; only read half.
Bruh. The community is literally called rant, why are complaining?
- Comment on Racism is for poor people. Rich folks have classism. 2 weeks ago:
You think they’re hiring you because you’re white? Nah, they’re hiring the dude whose dad golfs with the CEO. And if you’re not in the right tax bracket, you don’t even exist to them.
Except to the degree whiteness is part of being “default”, which is a desirable trait in a hire, along with personal familiarity. If they ever become too aware of this, a rich, educated, culturally assimilated but brown token hire is a likely outcome.
And let’s not pretend this is just a white people thing. A lot of wealthy people of color are just as classist. Sometimes worse. I’ve seen Indian millionaires in the U.S. and in India treat working-class people like absolute trash. Same with rich Latinos, rich Black folks, rich Asians. They’ll look down on people from their own communities like they’re somehow better Look at really bad and oppressive countries: the powerful and the rich are doing everything in their power to make their own people’s lives worse.
It’s true, class has been a default characteristic of everything beyond a basic hunter-gatherer society.
To do a bit of a nerdy digression, it is totally different in other place (or times, 1930’s rich guys were openly racist). In North America, there has been a conscious effort to separate it from things like race, religion, gender and sexual preference. Other places that’s not necessarily so, there might be more than one equally dominant group, and they might track something like caste that doesn’t even exist in the West. But yeah they definitely still do classism.
- Comment on A rant on left-wing online infighting 3 weeks ago:
The sad thing is, I’m sure you believe that.
- Comment on A rant on left-wing online infighting 3 weeks ago:
Ah yes, if you kick everyone else out you can guarantee there’s only one toxic person in the room.
- Comment on A rant on left-wing online infighting 3 weeks ago:
I think the important thing, for those of us in the picture anyway, is to be more aware of why we do what we do. We’re not robots programmed to save the world; there’s always something else driving it.
- Comment on A rant on left-wing online infighting 3 weeks ago:
It’s not just online. Monty Python made a joke about this in Life of Brian back in the 70’s.
I’m not asking people to change their mind on what they think of a person because of an isolated good thing they do, but to at least acknowledge it as a good thing or add nuance describing what about it you like or don’t. I can accept saying “I don’t think this is a good thing in this circumstance”, “this person will not follow through with this thing I think is good thing because ___”, or “they are doing a good thing for wrong and selfish reasons” too. But to outright deny any support for an action because of a wildly extrapolated character judgement of the person doing it, when that user would support it otherwise, vexes me greatly.
Ah, but nuance isn’t very motivating to the vast majority of people. Ego and having an identity is, though, and some people also crave conflict. Thinking this way serves all three.
