“Communism bad”
Olgratin_Magmatoe @ Olgratin_Magmatoe @lemmy.world Posts 3Comments 869Joined 2 yr. ago
Olgratin_Magmatoe @ Olgratin_Magmatoe @lemmy.world
Posts
3
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869
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2 yr. ago
You don’t seem to care about much of anything.
You don't need to personally attack me.
If progressing and improving systems isn’t enough for you because it isn’t immediately paradise for everyone and Utopia for all
That wasn't my point. The point is, you can't point to the soviet gulags and say it wasn't authoritarian, not without evidence.
Where are you getting the idea that large percentages of people were locked up without trial? Don’t you have to provide evidence for your claims as well?
You've made the implicit claim that those held in the gulags were held there with good, justified reasons. And then when you were asked to provide a source for it you gave me articles about the various places nazis went to after the war. Do you have evidence or not?
“Authoritarianism” as admitted by yourself is a buzzword descriptor for every state
No, it's a scale. Most societies/countries are on it, but not all. Additionally, it is not an inherent part of a society/country. No part of that is vibes based. Subjective, partially, but that's the nature of unquantifiable definitions whether you like it or not.
A state that controls people's speech is more authoritarian than one that does not. A state that controls people's movement is more authoritarian than one that does not. There are a million different ways that a state can be unquantifiably authoritarian, but it is still comparable, discussions on it can still be based on facts, and so on. No vibes are needed.
You don’t care how countries compare to their peers or their previous conditions
You can stop with the personal attacks.
What makes you think I don’t do that as well?
You seemed to have missed the "It’s probably a far better use of everybody’s time " part.
just that they were progressive compared to their peers,
But this is just a whataboutism. I don't care how progressive they were. What matter is them being authoritarians.
Is Wikipedia too Communist of a source?
No, of course not. However I don't see your white graph anywhere on that article.
Primary source of what, exactly?
The makeup of people held in the gulags. The reasons why they're there, whether they had trials, whether they were de facto considered innocent/guilty, etc. While interesting, neither of the links you use explain it. How many of those 'criminals' where put there for something non-violent?
You said all countries are authoritarian, why stick specifically to being upset at the USSR if they were less authoritarian than their contemporaries?
Here's the thing, even in comparison to it's contemporaries I don't think the USSR was less authoritarian. On the basis of prisoner populations, even the US as grossly authoritarian as it has been had a lower prison population (obviously only up until Regan).
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2016/12/29/bjs2016/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag#/media/File:USSR_custodial_population_in_1934-53.png
Wouldn’t a reduction in authoritarianism be a good thing?
Authoritarianism is still authoritarianism. Here's the thing, if you want to argue for socialism/communism, I'm all for it. But for the most part it is probably a terrible strategy to defend the USSR, and other countries that are portrayed as authoritarian dictatorships, because there is a great deal of truth to those portrayals from what it seems. You're just gonna scare off anybody even slightly closed minded.
It's probably a far better use of everybody's time to show that capitalism is a failure, that it's impossible to be paid the value you make under capitalism, that capitalism is just dictatorship in the workplace, etc. Those are the seeds you plant to get people to break out of their support for capitalism. Those are the ones that grow.
I was not giving the USSR a “free pass.” I was putting it into context. For its time, it was progressive.
Force labor is still forced labor even if it is better than what the past was.
It’s well known among Soviet Historians that famine occured during WWII and Prisoners were forced to take the brunt of the impact, rather than the average citizen or soldier.
The graph you have attached to this statement doesn't have a source listed. And sorry, but I'm no historian, so I would like something better than "it is well known".
There were numerous Nazi Collaborators, Tsarists, and Bourgeois elements that attempted to destabilize the State. What would satisfy you as evidence, just examples, or what?
Ideally a primary source would be preferred.
Then, genuine question, do you believe that making progressive, positive reductions in mortality rates is an authoritarian thing to do?
This question at it's core is a whataboutism and therefore invalid. Being a progressive authoritarian still means you're an authoritarian.
Referring to the part of the conversation about the cause of starvation in gulags being the result of the nazis invading Ukraine, your second graph definitely helps support it, with the caveat being correlation does not imply causation.
Prisons in the US are also often forced labor camps.
This is a whataboutism. The USSR doesn't get a free pass just because the U.S. is shitty too.
The bulk of this comes from WWII, when the Nazis invaded Ukraine, the USSR’s breadbasket. Famine increased and prisoners were not prioritized, leading to many dying.
Do you have a source? And given that you say "the bulk" and not all, what accounts for the remainder?
Fascists and Capitalists were indeed also sent to prison, yes.
Again, do you have a source?
By your logic, every state that has ever existed is authoritarian.
To varying degrees, pretty much yes.
So are you saying it isn't propaganda? Because the west depicts the gulags as forced labor camps, not just prisons. They are depicted as places where people starved to death through neglect, who were summarily executed upon failure to work, threatened with starvation. They are depicted as places where millions of people where held and died. They are also depicted as places where not just criminals were sent, but political prisoners as well.
I'm not saying the west has perfectly depicted it. The west is absolutely rife with propaganda. But there being even a kernel of truth to this is downright horrifying, and cause to call out the USSR as being authoritarian.
In what way were the gulags of the USSR propaganda?
If communism worked, there would nation using it.
There would also be married bachelors.
I especially love that it had to be split out to differentiate the latin american regime changes. They may as well just place a big H1 heading stating "THE U.S. IS EVIL"
Are you going somewhere with that? Or is this straight up a whataboutism?
We should absolutely be working on both. But the genocide of palestinians is definitely the easier one to effect at the moment.
.ml has 50k users, and hexbear has 27k.
Assuming every single one of those people side with Palestinians and also the CCP, and are also not bots or duplicate accounts(which is absolutely not the case), that's only 77k. Or 2.5% of the population of the U.S.
That's very few people like I said.
And if you only go off of active users in the last 6 months(which we should given that lots of people will have made accounts, then later left due to disagreement or lack of interest), it's only around 8k people. So again, very few people.
The difference is, western nations aren't giving China billions of dollars for the express purpose of bombing uyghur civilians. There is still the issue of continuing trade, but then you're getting into a game of passing the buck. The people blame the politicians who blame the corps who blame the people. Nobody wants to be the first to take responsibility for it.
I think you'll find very few people who are against Israel's actions but support China's actions.
Even so, having more software natively supported will always be a good thing. Half the reason why people drag their feet on switching to Linux is because of the lack of support for their favorite software.
Weird
Shit, I thought you were joking/talking about some asshat troll with the clown thing. lol
Yeah, the actual calculation still needs to be done right, but having it as an 'automated' process will help reduce this sort of bullshit:
Yeah thanks for the cordial discussion.
Of course. It's always nice to have a polite discussion. It's hard to have them, especially in an election year.
And again, I agree with everything you said.
where instead they should be explaining to their out-of-touch aunts and uncles
I agree, though the individual strategy there is very case by case basis. I know for me, personally, my parents wouldn't change their mind ever. I could show them gorey picture after gorey picture sandwiched with mass graves, and they'd be unphased.
It's a tough situation when your family is so stubborn.
I agree with pretty much you've said. Though I do want to add on to something.
Thus, if you want to see continued evolution on this issue by the administration/campaign, you have to first influence the polls. So go on social media and argue with everyone you can sincerely and bring the brutal reality to the American people.
I've taken a similar-ish strategy to this. The Biden campaign and then the Kamala campaign has been emailing me like 8 times a day every day asking for campaign contributions. And every single time I respond back with imagery of the brutality that is being enacted upon palestinians. Unsurprisingly they haven't responded to a single one. I'm probably just sending shit to their spam folder.
But yeah, public opinion needs to shift on this. And I think it will, though it's gonna be a few decades. You may already be familiar with this, but there is a common pattern in student/young adult lead protests, and social rights focused protests, is that in that a few decades after the protests, it turns out that public perception is retroactively on their side.
This happened with the civil rights movement, vietnam, we've seen this with LGBT rights, etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Student_protests_in_the_United_States
Take a look at these, and most of them are now popularly supported, especially the older they are.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident
This one in particular is only a decade old at this point, and the imagery behind this did far more for than any individual protest ever could have done.
So I think eventually the pro palestinian student lead protests will have an effect and be seen as the right side of history. Unfortunately it's gonna take a long while, and in the meanwhile a lot of palestinians are gonna die. So all we can do is try to speed up that process of changing public perception.
It's not even that. The more accurate title would be "Ranked voting types cannot mathematically meet all of the requirements of democracy this one guy made"
The whole video I wanted to yell out "so switch to approval voting".