• AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      It’s been democratically instituted many times. And every time America marches in and “liberates” them.

      It’s difficult to provide good examples when they’re all actively destroyed.

      • beejboytyson@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Cuba. Cuba has the most educated population in North America, more doctors per capita then almost any other nation. The only reason they’re struggling is because America’s embargo. They want stuff too.

        • ZeroHora@lemmy.ml
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          There is a Brazilian right-winger moron that said this golden statement: “there is only three things that works in Cuba: Security, Education and Healthcare”.

          For him that’s a bad thing btw.

      • eatCasserole@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Mostly this, although Vietnam is doing quite well, especially considering their circumstances.

        Cuba is also really interesting…not thriving, to be sure, but you have to end the US blockade before you blame them for their own hardships. And in spite of everything, they have democracy like we’ve never seen in the west.

        Edit: also what beejboytyson said about Cuba.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          The US dropped more napalm, and bombs, and agent orange on vietnam (a comparatively small country) than it did during all of WW2. Lots of its people are still suffering from this atrocity.

          • eatCasserole@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Sadly true. And most people aren’t aware that they did pretty much the same thing to Laos, who they weren’t even at war with. They just carpet bombed the whole country, “just in case.”

            Fuck the USA. They’re literally the evil empire from star wars.

            • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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              4 months ago

              It’s so funny that george lucas was like: “the rebels are the vietnamese communists, and the empire is the USA (its soldiers the storm troopers)” and somehow a lot of modern star wars fans are extremely pro-US, and never connect the dots.

              IMO the biggest critique of star wars, its that lucas didn’t focus at all on the lives of the stormtruppen, and force its audience in the imperial core to look in the mirror, at their values, their chauvinist culture, their pro-war ideology and news media.

              Still gotta keep blaming the rebels for all the world’s problems.

              • eatCasserole@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                That’s true, the storm troopers and stuff are basically presented as automatons. I guess some audiences like not having to think, but it would have been much more impactful to show them as people with their own beliefs and motivations and stuff.

                • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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                  4 months ago

                  There’s a lot of short stories about that in various books, though they tend to overuse both the tropes of banality of evil and the cackling evil maniacs.

                  • eatCasserole@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    Oh interesting, I’ve never really delved past the movies.

                    They did also choose to humanize a storm trooper with Finn in the new films, but I don’t remember him going through any “deprogramming” or anything, he just kinda realizes he’s a nice guy one day.

                    It would have been much more interesting to see him struggle with his changing worldview.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Yeah but all forms of government are constantly attacked. You’re like a multicellular organism crying foul because bacteria and other pathogens are trying to invade it.

        One of the reasons capitalism wins is it produces enough wealth to win wars. Consistently. The same wealth that leads to ever-lower levels of poverty also wins wars.

        • zzx@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Ah yes my favorite authoritative source on the mathematics of democracy: a YouTube video.

          Fuck off

          • Groggeroo@lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            Veritasium is legit, they cite their sources and explain concepts exceptionally well.

            However, I don’t think the conclusion of the video is “Democracy is mathematically impossible”, but rather “perfect representation in a democracy” is mathematically impossible (but can still be much much better than FPTP).

            The video basically goes through all the top voting systems and explains their pros and cons and the history of the mathematicians who invented the systems.

            • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              but rather “perfect representation in a democracy” is mathematically impossible (but can still be much much better than FPTP).

              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”.

          • save_the_humans@leminal.space
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            The dude makes some pretty legit videos. He has a PhD in physics education research. Using YouTube is just a sign of the time we live in. Imagine if your professor quit their job to become a YouTuber because they thought it’d be a more effective medium for education than a whiteboard.

            Mathematics is, in a sense, about abstraction and generalization, and the video covers an ideal, or set of axioms, you’d want from a voting system. This perfect system was proven to be impossible and the researcher was granted the Nobel prize in economics. In short, there can be no perfect voting system, and we must accept a compromise (much like an engineer). You can also say mathematics is about proofs, and, no matter how unintuitive something might seem, it leaves no room for doubt. It doesn’t hardly matter if the source comes from a YouTube video.

            Edit: I don’t agree with the context the video was posted, but I was bothered by this response to it.

      • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        You could’ve just typed “No”.

        All the other things you’ve typed is nonsense anyways.

          • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            In the “I disagree but can’t articulate a cogent reason for it” sense of the word “nonsense”, of course. 🙄

            • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
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              Might be worth reading up on history to put some facts behind those feelings. Either you’ll find out you’re right or you’ll update your beliefs to be more correct.

            • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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              My country was on the path of the democratically instituted socialism thing. Well, it tried but the United States instigated, funded and armed a military coup and the military dictatorship that followed.

              Guess it’s better to have torture camps than gobbunism

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                4 months ago

                Democratic Socialism is alive and well in many countries without any U.S. intervention. You must be referring to the fascist kind.

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        Fell for this one before, Mr. Manson.

        There was a reality TV show about communes and stuff. Granted it’s reality TV but aside from the bad ones media doesn’t cover them very much. Long story short, it really didn’t do a good job of saying communism-good.

        I think the best examples might be like Cuba having universal health care or something but ny experience was with a michael moore doc so it’s kinda sketch to begin.

        • MaeBorowski@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          Communes have almost nothing to do with communism. When you are living in a capitalist world and beholden to a capitalist economy, you are not suddenly experiencing communism just because you live on a collective farm. A commune is not “doing communism,” not because they are doing something wrong or anything, but because it simply doesn’t work like that. In a simple definition of communism, the workers own the means of production. The people living on a commune within capitalism still do not own the means of production, they still exist almost entirely at the whims of the broader capitalist economic structure.

          Also, it’s just ridiculous to expect a tiny microcosm of any system to represent how sound that system is if it were to be scaled up. Especially when that microcosm is inside of another structure that will actively stamp it out of existence if it threatens to grow. Trying to build a commune within a capitalist country is like trying to build a town at the bottom of the ocean. Everything beyond the limits of your project is hostile to its existence simply as a matter of the surrounding natural forces. But just because it’s extremely hard to build a town at the bottom of the ocean, and when it was tried it ended in failure, doesn’t mean that towns in general are destined to fail. In an appropriate environment they can and do thrive.

          • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Excellent post. To add, Engels does a great refutation of these utopian socialist / commune projects, in Socialism, utopian and scientific.

          • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            But it’s a natural state of existence to exist within a broader, hostile context.

            Civilization, at all levels, has always been that. Competition is everywhere.

            If a system requires nothing else to be competing with it, in order to work, then it’s not viable.

            • MaeBorowski@lemmy.ml
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              But it’s a natural state of existence to exist within a broader, hostile context.

              No it’s not. A commune within a communist society would not at all exist within a hostile context but in one that nurtures it. Likewise a billionaire’s corporation like Bezos’ amazon dot com does not exist in a naturally hostile context under capitalism, it exists in a context that literally would not allow it to fail, propping it up at all costs. The banks that should have gone under and been utterly annihilated in 2008 were instead propped up and rewarded for their complete failure and sheer incompetence to the extent that mass amounts of wealth were siphoned away from working class to keep them afloat.

              Civilization, at all levels, has always been that. Competition is everywhere.

              Civilization at all levels has always required profound amounts of cooperation to come into being, to continue to exist, and to thrive. Civilization exists only because of cooperation, not because of competition. Competition has always existed too, but has been more of a hindrance than a benefit to civilization and certainly not a requirement like cooperation is. The cult-like worship of competition is something that the capitalists have fostered and spread for the obvious reason that widespread belief in this lie is beneficial to them. I would urge you not to fall for a very obvious and simple-minded ploy.

              If a system requires nothing else to be competing with it, in order to work, then it’s not viable.

              Gibberish.

            • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              So what’s your broader hostile context? Or are you living an unnatural life?

              Is it the landlord or corporate owner putting the boot to your neck because you need a roof over your head and food in your belly?

              If so do you think your life would lose meaning if the boot was lifted from your neck?

              Do you really think it’s unnatural to have all your needs met?

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        And not in any way implemented by the government.

        I’m a conservative, and I have zero problem with communism when it’s performed spontaneously by people.

        It’s when the government starts doing it that it bothers me.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          And not in any way implemented by the government.

          Have you ever heard of GPL?

          To be fair publisherploitation(AKA copyright) in general is enforced by goverment.

          It’s when the government starts doing it that it bothers me.

          What is difference between paying membership fee in non-profit and paying taxes? What if difference between voting on members meeting and on referendum? What is difference between board elections and goverment elections? What is difference between paying members to not starve to death while achieving goal of non-profit and funding healthcare for citizens to not die while living?

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Large-scale, actual communism with no authoritarianism? Not that I’m aware of. It’s hard to implement true communism effectively on a large scale because most people have to care enough about others to willingly contribute for it to work.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        What do you count as “Authoritatianism?”

        Why do you think Communism requires people to care about others to function, and why would they not work otherwise?

        I think you have some serious misunderstandings about what Communism entails.

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          Authoritarianism is the opposite of libertarianism, roughly speaking. It’s a sliding scale, but those would be the two opposites in play.

          For example, a more authoritarian approach to road safety would be: “Manufacturers are not allowed to make cars that go over 50 mph”

          A more libertarian approach to road safety would be: “We’re publishing the average fatality rate of this road. You can choose to engage with it as you deem appropriate”

          Our actual approach with licenses and speed limits and some regulations on car safety and soft but escalating consequences for breaking the road rules is somewhere in between.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.

        Turns out when people are free to make economic arrangements as they please, capitalism happens.

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        Which is why it’s a utopian movement. They do their best to enslave your thoughts and control your actions, and when that fails (and it always does) they slaughter anyone and everyone that won’t play along.

        No person is perfect, so when you demand perfection, you’re going to have to get rid of anyone but those who are perfect at playing perfect.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        While it accomplishes lot of basics right, like housing, food and education generally, further it goes, it starts carving into personal freedom and makes everything worse.

        Can you explain what you mean by this, and why you believe it despite direct evidence to the contrary, such as in Cuba?

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      Just like Capitalism you aren’t going to find any examples of the system in the world today

      When people actually lived in communes it was cool though

      • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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        Just like Capitalism you aren’t going to find any examples of the system in the world today

        About to have my brain turned into soup by asking this question:

        Are you implying that there are no examples of capitalism in the world today?

        • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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          Yeah, what country rewards jobs based on hours worked rather than assets owned?

          What people refer to as “late-stage capitalism” is no different than the system capitalism was supposed to replace

          • MaeBorowski@lemmy.ml
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            Just because it is (and always was) a complete lie that capitalism would lead to prosperity for working people, that doesn’t mean that capitalists aren’t doing capitalism. Capitalism hasn’t been corrupted from some ideal system into something else, this is what capitalism is and it’s been known as such for over a century and a half.

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              Since the beginning but not because that’s what capitalism is, it’s because the mercantilist lords wanted a rebrand when peasants started killing them

              If a country decided to switch to communism, that elite rebrand would still happen. Animal Farm paints this, China having more inequality than Japan or South Korea also paints this it’s what allows people to say true capitalism has never been tested and the elite can exploit that to increase inequality

    • linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      USSR Angola Cuba China DPRK Ethiopia Mongolia Vietnam GDR. I cant understand how people can look at a country that dramatically improved its peoples standard of living brought democracy and freedom, and not see it as a good thing.

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
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        USSR Angola Cuba China

        Ok, I guess you could argue the point that these countries

        DPRK

        What the absolute fuck are you talking about.

          • vga@sopuli.xyz
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            The war sure explains why they have a reason to be antagonist towards South Korea and USA – in a similar way as WW2 explains why Finland is very wary of Russia still in 2000s.

            But it doesn’t explain why they insist on keeping their system in the same horrible broken state. Germany and Japan were ravaged by a war and they didn’t go permanently crazy at state level.

          • DdCno1@beehaw.org
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            4 months ago

            Why don’t you tell the audience who got the OK from Stalin to start this war?

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          The DPRK is by no means perfect, but it’s also not some hermit kingdom where the peasants push trains to make them move.

          If you have 20 minutes, I recommend you watch We Went to North Korea to Get a Haircut, it’s humanizing and helps dispel a lot of modern myths about the DPRK. Again, it’s by no means perfect, but the West has absolutely mythologized its existence to lunacy.

        • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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          What the absolute fuck are you talking about.

          On this subject more than any other the western brain is completely destroyed by propaganda.

          The crazy shit you will and have believed about Korea without any evidence is stunning and can only be explained by racism.

          You actually believed when they said the whole country had to get the same haircut?

          • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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            Some school districts in Japan already do this to kids tbh. There was a kerfuffle a while back and some schools dropped some limitations after lawsuits. Like if your kid has naturally curly or blonde hair you’d need to prove it. (Haven’t gone deep on fact checking, take it with a grain of salt)

            I’d say it’s not unreasonable that if you have a manufactured preconceived (racist) notion about a place that you would believe it.

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              South Korea and RoC actually did the mandatory haircuts on occasions (though in case of RoC it was justified and was more like one particular haircut was forbidden). It’s always projection.

        • linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml
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          whats wrong with the DPRK? I have family that has been there and they thought it was a fine place certainly doing a lot better than the median capitalist country.

          • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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            Its a current enemy for not being destroyed (like the US tried to do), so a bunch of western-supremacist-brained people believe literally anything negative said about it, as it confirms their racist biases.

      • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        dramatically improved its peoples standard of living brought democracy and freedom

        Hahahaha, oh man, you Tankies ARE high on your own farts

        • linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml
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          having a market does not make a country capitalist. And yeah there is corruption as there is in every 3rd world country (and most 1st world countries just in different less noticeable ways), they are certainly doing more about it than most capitalist countries, and all indicators of standard of living are far better than is the vast majority of capitalist countries so i wouldnt call it a shit show, i mean its hard to recover from having just about every fucking building in ur country destroyed and ur forests and farms poisoned and millions murdered and even more displaced only 50 years ago especially when the country that did all that continues to actively try to fuck u over. They are doing well great even.

        • The Spectre@lemmy.mlOPM
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          It is not capitalist. There has been corruption and those corrupt official have been executed, as they should.

            • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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              Colonialism certainly helped establish some settlements, but is colonialism essential for the survival of the kibbutz system? I don’t think so.

              For example, if a kibbutz was initiated (legally and paid for) in Australia, then colonialism would not be an ingredient.

                  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                    The example was colonialist. It has only existed in a colonialist form. You were tasked with providing an example of Socialism working, which by extension implies you believe colonialism to be compatible with Socialism. This is nonsense.