zenforyen @ zenforyen @feddit.org

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Joined

4 mo. ago

No worries. Yeah, you came off as somewhat hostile, or maybe I mixed you up with the other commenter.

What is annoying on Lemmy (this does not apply to you) are the cliche "tankies" who immediately accuse everyone who is not of their opinion to be a fascist or support fascism. That for sure won't help the cause of educating the proletariat.

Paradoxically, such people are pushing many just ignorant or centrist-minded people towards the right, and this does a great disservice to the left basically everywhere, rubbing people under their nose how they are supposedly wrong or bad (not saying that there are no people with truly horrible and wrong views, just saying you for sure won't convince them that way).

I think the left should not only study socialism/Marxism/etc, but also much more psychology. Being or feeling right is easy, convincing others - that's the hard part, and most left movements are really bad at their "marketing", while the fascists have nothing to offer, but are better at PR. It's a frustrating state of affairs.

Thanks for staying civil and constructive.

My very original statement was about the fact regulated markets makes sense as an instrument in an economy, and as long as they are ultimately controlled to work to the benefit for the people, they are a useful instrument. I am strongly against the idea that markets are the ultimate ordering principle for society. If by "capitalism" you mean this, then sure, I am against capitalism. But this extreme free market capitalism has a name - neoliberalism. I'm against neoliberalism, because it leads to inequality and fascism.

I don't see where we even disagree, except for how to call certain combinations and variations of features in an economy. Honestly, I don't believe how to call it is so important except for the fact we agree on the actual meaning behind the practical outcome.

China has always been a syncretic culture that is really good at incorporating various elements that make sense in a holistic way into their culture. They digested socialism just as they digested capitalism and just as they digested Buddhism when it was new.

In any case thanks for your links, I'm currently reading a survey about China (not focused on only the last century), so this can complement my reading.

Haha my family emigrated from Russia in the 90s, don't tell me about the real life in the Soviet Union.

The difference between wealthiest and poorest was surely much smaller, but the living standard overall was also much lower. My grandpa telling stories how he had to stay in line in the hope to get some sausage for the family, or about the underground black markets where people illegally were exchanging western goods that simply did not exist in the Soviet Union. The misplanned and falsely reported production, factory owners faking their numbers to appear like they satisfy quota. My grand-grandpa barely not being sent to a Gulag because we're an ethnic minority, even though he was a WWII war hero. Having to use connections and swaps to organize having an independent apartment for your adult children and their partners. Having to engage in everyday bribing of officials to get some paperwork ready not in months but weeks, because that's the only way to get things done there.

Is this more than vibe to you? You are not exactly quoting academic literature either.

I have heard enough stories to know that this is not a system I could see or want myself existing in and I'm happy I grew up in central Europe.

The PRC is doing its own thing. You can call it socialist market, but this term I have never heard before, the usual term is state capitalism. What we can agree on is that they are doing pretty well at the moment.

Did I say anywhere that the US is great ?

I'm central European and always hated their mentality and imperialism. You seem to equate US with any form of economy with some form of capitalism, i.e. markets and prices as a mechanism.

Europe is also far from innocent from further back, but AFAIK Europe did not coup or invade anyone recently and we have our own flavor of political system, social democracy or call it however you like, which worked pretty well until everything began to shift into US-style neoliberalism/fascism in the last 20 years or so.

I'm as happy to see the US destroy themselves and lose influence right now as you probably are, but you are right, I have been living in a privileged environment in any case.

You want to see enemies, so you picture me like one.

Tell me one country that absolutely without doubt was able to improve the living standard and bring masses of people out of poverty, which is not China.

I am not a fanboy of China, but I respect that whatever they are doing in the last 30-40 years, because it works. Even through a biased Western lens it's hard to deny that they are extremely successful. But China does not count. They drifted away from pure socialism right after Mao was done. The legacy of Mao is not that great. Both Stalin and Mao mainly produced repressions and famines.

And where is the rest of the "socialist block" which is supposedly successful right now, and not an authoritarian corrupt backwater? I know what you'll say. The evil West has torpedoed everything everywhere. That's too convenient.

I read the Capital, did you?

Don't you dare telling me I hate the left.

I just dislike people who think they have found the ultimate answer and love their answer more than other people.

Economical and organizational structure is a tool to manage societies, not a fucking religion.

Socialism was never implemented in good faith. Oh, you're talking about the Soviet Union? Try to run a planned economy on a scale of a modern society. And tell me about equality and freedom where you gotta be in the party to have access to better stuff.

Or you are talking about China? Well, they are pragmatic and apparently learned. That's why China is not a planned economy, but state capitalism. Sadly, it's heavily authoritarian.

Capitalism and the idea of markets is not the problem. The problem is if it becomes an end in itself. So if you ask me, economically, the model that China is doing right now is right and obviously pretty successful. It is the rest I would rather not copy.

I neither want to live in a country run by oligarchs, nor by a self-serving elite of authoritarian bureaucrats. The rotten form of capitalism is the neoliberal dystopia we see in the west right now, the rotten form of socialism is what the Soviet Union was by the end.

You want a socialist revolution? Good luck. But please think about how to prevent just shifting the wealth and power from one group of bad people to another over the course of a few decades.

Ah it's always the same with those ideologically blinded people.

Capitalism is inherently bad blah blah

Socialism can never work blah blah

It's all bullshit. Capitalism does not matter, socialism does not matter. How we call it does not matter. What matters is that a society is healthy, sustainable and prospering.

The main problem of all theories is the confrontation with reality - each set of values or ideology is as much worth as the people who (supposedly) follow it.

In any system we ever built, there are greedy, corrupt, powerful people, who like shit, always somehow end up swimming at the top. And then everything begins to rot.

That's a nice test, it is indeed some odd imbalance that it seems to be normalized that women being more "close" and open among each other in various kinds of ways is considered normal, while in men it is raising eyebrows.

As if any form of "closeness" is branded as feminine and men who are acting in similar ways are considered to be either gay or perverted.

The toxic emotionless, distanced sociopathic alpha male stereotype somehow still shaping our feelings about "masculinity" on a deep level, even if we consider ourselves to be progressive. And of course we see our roles of being a father or a husband through that distorted lens of unwritten expectations deep in our subconscious.

Around primary school, I got two scars on my chin, on the same place, because I did not have the reflex to put my hands in front of me when falling on my face. Both times I fell face-first on a stone floor.

And I once fell over backwards and broke my arm, because I was laughing so hard.

As a teenager I also broke my nose in 38 pieces because of that lack of basic reflexes + causing a traffic accident due to being reckless and stupid.

Kids, don't go over red lights, even if you think there is no car coming. Especially not when it is getting dark and you got headphones with music on.

Maybe eventually my kids will have IPv6 as the common sense default and will marvel at the ingenuity of their ancestors to keep using way too few addresses for way too many devices

What is it that you call capitalism is the question.

Market capitalism is a practical approach to solving a intractable optimization problem - allocating finite resources in the best way to get optimal results (whatever it may be, such as maximizing production of certain goods while minimizing waste and loss and minimizing "unfairness", however it is defined).

The alternative to capitalism is planned economy. It could not work 100 years ago because technology was not even close to the advancement level to be able to optimize a whole economy, i.e. solve a highly complex set of equations with billions of variables.

Maybe today it would work out, technology-wise, but it is not clear in detail how a society completely without markets could work. Certainly not everything is feasible to be decided by some election or by decision of some committee. It would lead to what was seen in the soviet union - bad planning based on incomplete and unreliable data.

Markets solve this problem and the whole thing works.

The question is who controls the markets.

In capitalism = neoliberal dystopia actually the capitalists themselves all instead of competing try to transcend beyond competition by either becoming a monopolist or becoming the market itself ("platform"). The fascist US oligarchs are working towards this.

On the other hand, China has state capitalism - the government has a strong upper hand, but use capitalistic market mechanics (with the needed biases to ensure the market is working towards the goals of the state, not some wealthy class).

Now you can explain to me how I maybe use the terms all incorrectly, but what I'm saying is: what China is doing is working, what the Soviets tried to do did not.

If China was not authoritarian, but had elections, it would be democratic and capitalistic, so what wie also call social democracy. In contrast to socialism, which is supposed to be democratic and anti-capitalistic, i.e. planned economy, which never worked and probably still would not.

The problem is not capitalism as a mechanism of economy, it's the distribution of power. Corruption and decay and abuse is possible in every coceivable economic system. The question is, who is the system working for.

Ideally the state works for the people, in the sense of a collective of respected individuals, and the economy works for the state. If that is given, details such as the exact structure and processes for decision making and resource allocation are irrelevant, as long as they are sustainable and ethical.

Social democracy as a concept would work if those doing it would have a spine and not be traitors of the working class.

But whatever is sold as social democracy these days (or actually the last 20 years at least), I absolutely agree is a scam.

At least in Germany, there is no left party that is both realistic (not trying to be pacifist when facing bullies, or promising unrealistic things making sure they will never get more than 15%) and also truly acting in the interest of the people, sadly. SPD is the German version of what you said, slightly softer neolibs in sheep's clothing.

Bandcamp solves all problems - you buy the CD as before, but digitally, including lossless FLAC, like 90% goes to the artist or their small label instead of Sony or Universal or Spotify, you can download the album or stream it with the app. It's good enough for me that I only store the files for backup and use the app for listening to most of my recent music purchases.

If there was such a demihuman bike god, I would ride my bicycle more often. I just don't want to have to maintain it and waste time of my life again because some dumbass broke a beer bottle on the street.

Interesting discussion, I kind of understand both of your stances.

One stance is driven by fear of the slippery slope and the frog not noticing being boiled until it's too late. The fear of normalizing fascist parties and views until they dominate, which is a fully rational fear given existing history.

The other stance is driven by fear of ever increasing polarization and hostility, which is another slippery slope, to fragmentation of society into parts that live in different realities, inability to agree on almost anything, causing alienation and opposition, leading to stagnation and possibly violence, when the other side is so abstract they cannot be emphasized with anymore. That again is also a fully rational fear to have, watching what happens in societies in the last years.

I don't even know who of you is more "right", if that notion even applies. Truth is, nobody will know until we see the consequences. In hindsight (a pretty privileged vantage point) many wrong decisions look obvious.

That said, if you care about your friends and think they really do value you and your opinions and truly have no general prejudices (and you are not some "exception from the rule" to them), you maybe should try to understand what makes them vote the way they do and explain how this could have bad long term consequences on you and whether they would want that or find taking that risk acceptable.

Because, if they truly are your friends and have something called empathy and heart, they might reconsider, and otherwise, maybe they are not really your friends and would drop you the moment you become outlawed.

I don't know your friends, but I hope you do.

Fair enough.

I held on to this possibility for similar reasons for years, but after some honest self reflection I cannot say there would be anyone from my past life who is still important and I have no other means to contact, my Facebook bubble from 10 years ago and more is long dead, i.e. similarly inactive.

Maybe giving people an email address, phone number or username somewhere else via Facebook message before leaving for good could also be a solution.

Be brave, do it. I just did it a few months ago. Just push the trigger and delete it. Let it go. They will of course keep the data, but at least not legally anymore.

I would never want to work at a place where I have to talk like this unironically. It's ridiculous.

If you are competent, you show it directly. No need to hide behind bullshit buzzwords.

Well, at least that's my reverse filter for companies.

My current team leader interviewed me in a band shirt and we deep dived into realistic brainstorming for how I would approach real problems and we instantly vibed.

I immediately knew that's a good place.

That is just needlessly mean. Done that once to some rando, even worse. I dumped a rant on them. They deleted the post and their account. I felt bad. Don't be like me.

I only trust people who get stomach aches when faced with stressful ethical dilemmas.