• Haus@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Basing your opinions on socialism on how Russia implemented it makes about as much sense as basing an opinion on Democracy on how Putin has implemented it.

      • Soup@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Communism, like capitalism, is an extreme that has certain, very difficult to achieve, requirements. Capitalism needs everyone to be morally decent in order for companies to focus on winning customers through innovation instead of propganda and lobbying, and to accept losses instead of whining. Even the transition into communism is incredibly complicated and technically what where the USSR was stuck, and once there you have to hope that the rest of the world went along with it because it’ll work either on increbily small scales(individual companies, for example) or on a global scale but not really on a mid-sized scale. Plus in both you have basic greed and people who are literally just born narcissitic or legitimately psychotic.

        Extreme ideologies are great thought experiments but rarely have any kind of well-developed protections built and are pretty fragile.

        If you want a better answer, look at the quality of life in countries with stronger regulations and more communism-according-to-North America systems. In the heavily privatised U.S. there are a lot of people who live absolutely shit lives due to an abyssmal lack of protections. Even in Canada, which is far too close to the U.S. here, at least a homeless person can recieve some level of medical assistance including major surgeries and Covid stimulus was more than a cheap joke.

        Extreme

        • tpihkal@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Canada’s medical assistance for the homeless is becoming just offer them an assisted suicide.

          • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That’s a cute meme, but not true at all. Canada spends a lot of money on health care for the homeless. In fact, the current system of NOT spending enough on basic shelter and mental health & addiction supports means that we spend far more than we should on emergency care and downstream health-related consequences.

            There is widespread agreement among those who work in social services that some form of supervised, humane institutional living is needed if we are going to solve the homelessness problem. There is hesitation to implement that because it is extremely expensive and politically fraught.

            More importantly, if we are being honest, housing people in decent conditions for free would create a huge amount of competition with private sector landlords, retirement homes, long-term care homes, etc. Unfortunately, the “system” implicitly uses the threat of homelessness or squalid accommodations as a major lever to motivate people to work at jobs that are not very stimulating. Mind you, human nature being what it is, I think the same would ultimately be true under any economic system or form of government.

            At least until our robotic AI overlords invent an unlimited energy source and take over the tedious work so we can all sit around doing whatever pleases us, lol.

            • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Canada’s idea of dealing with the homeless is to send cops after them and then subsidize rental housing. Because that’s worked so far…

          • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Fact check: True

            Source: Parent’s friend went through MAID a month ago because they couldn’t get a job.

      • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Cuba, Vietnam, Allende’s Chile perhaps, but it’s not like any are perfect. There’s a wide range of socialist approaches used in different countries around the world though.

        Moderate socialist governments effectively weren’t allowed to exist, the US sponsored fascist coups and did whatever they could to remove them. So the ones that were able to survive had to be more extreme, autocratic, and isolationist.

      • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If your looking for modern day examples, the zapatistas are a pretty good example.

        For historical examples you can look to the Paris commune, civil war Barcelona, the original zapatista movement.

  • patomaloqueiro@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    This is more accurate: Online discussion about capitalism

    People living in a third world capitalist country

    14-year-old white boy living in a Western country: I know more than you

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    14 year old white girl

    Bravo they managed to also cram ageism and misogyny in the old “champagne socialism” meme. All in the single sentence.

  • Prunebutt@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Considering that the USSR only claimed to be socialist and used propaganda (in accord with the US) to convince the people that state control is the same as worker’s control over the means of production (it isn’t), the girl is probably correct.

    • Muad'Dibber@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      An Excerpt from Parenti - Blackshirts and reds:


      The upheavals in Eastern Europe did not constitute a defeat for socialism because socialism never existed in those countries, according to some U.S. leftists. They say that the communist states offered nothing more than bureaucratic, one-party “state capitalism” or some such thing. Whether we call the former communist countries “socialist” is a matter of definition. Suffice it to say, they constituted something different from what existed in the profit-driven capitalist world–as the capitalists themselves were not slow to recognize.

      First, in communist countries there was less economic inequality than under capitalism. The perks enjoyed by party and government elites were modest by corporate CEO standards in the West [even more so when compared with today’s grotesque compensation packages to the executive and financial elites.—Eds], as were their personal incomes and lifestyles. Soviet leaders like Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev lived not in lavishly appointed mansions like the White House, but in relatively large apartments in a housing project near the Kremlin set aside for government leaders. They had limousines at their disposal (like most other heads of state) and access to large dachas where they entertained visiting dignitaries. But they had none of the immense personal wealth that most U.S. leaders possess. {Nor could they transfer such “wealth” by inheritance or gift to friends and kin, as is often the case with Western magnates and enriched political leaders. Just vide Tony Blair.—Eds]

      The “lavish life” enjoyed by East Germany’s party leaders, as widely publicized in the U.S. press, included a $725 yearly allowance in hard currency, and housing in an exclusive settlement on the outskirts of Berlin that sported a sauna, an indoor pool, and a fitness center shared by all the residents. They also could shop in stores that carried Western goods such as bananas, jeans, and Japanese electronics. The U.S. press never pointed out that ordinary East Germans had access to public pools and gyms and could buy jeans and electronics (though usually not of the imported variety). Nor was the “lavish” consumption enjoyed by East German leaders contrasted to the truly opulent life style enjoyed by the Western plutocracy.

      Second, in communist countries, productive forces were not organized for capital gain and private enrichment; public ownership of the means of production supplanted private ownership. Individuals could not hire other people and accumulate great personal wealth from their labor. Again, compared to Western standards, differences in earnings and savings among the populace were generally modest. The income spread between highest and lowest earners in the Soviet Union was about five to one. In the United States, the spread in yearly income between the top multibillionaires and the working poor is more like 10,000 to 1.

      Third, priority was placed on human services. Though life under communism left a lot to be desired and the services themselves were rarely the best, communist countries did guarantee their citizens some minimal standard of economic survival and security, including guaranteed education, employment, housing, and medical assistance.

      Fourth, communist countries did not pursue the capital penetration of other countries. Lacking a profit motive as their motor force and therefore having no need to constantly find new investment opportunities, they did not expropriate the lands, labor, markets, and natural resources of weaker nations, that is, they did not practice economic imperialism. The Soviet Union conducted trade and aid relations on terms that generally were favorable to the Eastern European nations and Mongolia, Cuba, and India.

      All of the above were organizing principles for every communist system to one degree or another. None of the above apply to free market countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Thailand, South Korea, Chile, Indonesia, Zaire, Germany, or the United States.

      But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic, cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.

      The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    What people who lived in the Soviet union and other socialist states have to say:

    This study shows that unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around 7 million excess deaths. The first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialization and mortality in Eastern Europe.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The trajectory Hungary took after transition to capitalism mirrors what happened in most post USSR states. This just further supports the point that the communist system was better.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            What happened in countries like Hungary and Poland is a direct result of the transition to capitalism however. What’s more this transition happened under the best possible conditions. The transition happened largely democratically without any violent revolutions, and these countries got support from the west to soften economic impact of the transition. Yet, despite all that we see that majority of post Soviet countries end up going in a similar direction under capitalism. Again, Hungary isn’t an outlier here.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Thing is that bad management, corruption, and so on, have happened in every human society that has ever existed. A political system isn’t magically going to change that. What a political system can do however is create different selection pressures for behavior. Capitalist system selects for different kinds of behaviors than a communist one. As we see with the case of transition from communism to capitalism in eastern Europe, the selection pressures of capitalism result in far worse things happening than under communism.

      • Ludwig van Beethoven@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Hard agree. Our government will wreck the economy just to die on two hills: social conservatism (EU funding says hi) and russian reliance. Russian gas, russian atom (x2) because they want to build Paks II. They also gerrymandered the everliving fuck out of electoral districts so they can win their precious supermajority. I hope they fail on at least one of the aforementioned hills so they can drop the ball like the now-opposition did in 2006. As for communism, well, the 72% seems very wrong. Sure we had dictatorship-lite, but 1956 happened beforehand, to which we lost many of our schools for example. Plenty of (grand+)parents’ tales paint communism like it was the worst thing that could possibly have happened. Also, if 72% of people preferred communism, then surely the dem. socialist party would Poll higher than 3%.

        Reminder that fidesz (the govt party) was originally anti-communist. (I am Hungarian if it wasn’t obvious).

          • Ludwig van Beethoven@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            God how hard it will be for people to realise how fucking stupid making more russian reactors and signing more russian gas contracts are. Our electoral system is in shambles1. social issues are overwhelmingly conservative here. The bigger green party is anti-gLObaLisM. The neo-na**s have the same amount of seats as green party number 1.

            1: 2022: Popular vote: 54,13% Fidesz-KDNP; 34,44% United Opposition; 5,88% Our Homeland (neo-na**s). cf district votes: Fidesz-KDNP 87, United Opposition 19.

            Mixed system so parliament makeup (199 seats) is 135 seats - 67,84% for Fidesz-KDNP; 57 seats - 28,64% for United Opposition; 6 seats - 3,02% for Our Homeland; and 1 seat for German national representation thing.

            So yeah, shit’s fucked

  • spacesweedkid27 @lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    2 things:

    1. The victors write history

    2. After Lenin the USSR was not really communist anymore but more really a totalitarian state that didn’t believe in the values of communism. Just like China.

    Everything would probably have been better if Lenin didn’t die so fast and then Trotsky would have ruled.

    • Kerred@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago
      1. The victors write history

      Flashback to stories of Rus conquests written by the Rus that said the people asked to be conquered

    • Depress_Mode@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “History is written by the victors” is a tired cliché that doesn’t always hold up super well if you spend a moment to consider it.

      Who conquered Rome? Surely, it was a people remembered for their great military prowess, right? Nope, still commonly remembered as barbarians thousands of year later.

      The Mongols had one of the largest empires in history, and yet in much of the lands they conquered, they’re remembered as being monstrously ugly brutes, which is where words like “mongoloid” and “mongrel” come from.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Just like China.

      And Cuba. And North Korea.

      One of those funny coincidences that keeps happening.

      To be perfectly clear: I’m not strongly opposed to what any “14-year-old white girl” means when she promotes communism. I understand leftist goals as distinct from what these countries actually did. But the fact these countries had those goals, and then did this shit instead, demands a better explanation than ‘that doesn’t count.’ Especially when leftist philosophy has a lot to say about liberals and capitalism inevitably producing terrible outcomes.

      • MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee
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        All of those countries made great strides in accomplishing great things for their people actually, and you’ve just been lied to about them and their history repeatedly from the time of your birth, to the point that you don’t actually know jack shit about any of them but you think you do? You’re the 14 year old clueless girl in this scenario, thinking that Cuba is some evil dictatorship because you were told that lmfao.

        • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Just like China.

          Which is also a dictatorship.

          Turns out literacy or whatever doesn’t cancel out being a dictatorship.

          • MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee
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            It’s a dictatorship of the proletariat in the same sense that America is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. In other words, it’s significantly more democratic than America, in that the people have far more control over their government, which is why it achieves better outcomes. The government is more responsive to the people than in countries like America, which is totally and utterly irresponsive and therefore not democratic at all. Cuba is also significantly more democratic than the U.S. and other liberal “democracies”.

            • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              It’s a dictatorship of the Castro family, in a way America’s representative democracy isn’t one at all.

              It was literally modeled on the Soviet Union, well after all y’all insist the Soviet Union stopped doing anything communism-ish and was a straight-up dictatorship. Again - quoting the initial mook I replied to - “just like China.”

              Boring goddamn tankies think it’s a zero-sum game where one thing being bad means the other must be flawless.

              • MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                From the CIA’s assessment

                Even In Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organi- zation of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and I t seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain. However, 1t does not appear that any of the present leaders will rise to the stature of Lenin and Stalin,so that it w i l lbe safer to assume that developments in Moscow will be along the lines of what is called collective leadership, unless Western policies force the Soviets to stream- line their power organization.

                https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf

              • MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                The USSR also wasn’t a dictatorship in the way that you imagine and even the CIA admitted that it wasn’t, that was always just a lie they made up.

                China is not a dictatorship in the way that you imagine either, and is, as I already explained more democratic than the liberal “democracies”.

                Kind of wacky to claim that Cuba is a dictatorship of the “Castro family” when their elected president who is term limited is not a part of the Castro family, but again you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about and are just parroting lies that you were spoon fed since you were a baby.

                • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  Fidel is dead and Raul is 90 and you’re playing gulag apologia.

                  We will never speak again. Waste someone else’s time.

      • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        To be clear, the alternative here is Stalin. There are like only five people who would be worse choices

    • TheLordHumungus@lemmy.world
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      Trotsky was as much a tyrant and potentially even more blood would have been spilled. Trotsky was a strong proponent of war communism which was brutal towards the Russian civilians.

    • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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      Stalin believed in the values of communism, he just also believed everyone was out to get him. Economically he followed Lenin’s plan of nationalization and collectivization even more zealously then Lenin would have. Lenin wasn’t as paranoid as Stalin and probably wouldn’t have killed and gulaged millions of “suspicious” people but he was still very much a dictator and was willing to use any means necessary to achieve his goals, same with Trotsky.

      With any of them the super structure of the state and how it’s organized may vary a bit, but it would have all been built off a nationalized and collectivized base. Whether you want to call that base communism is up to you, but you can’t say one is and one isn’t.

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Lenin did put plenty of people in Gulags. Communism = fascism.

        • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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          He did but not nearly as much as Stalin.

          Equating soviet style communism and fascism completely ignores the base. Yes the structure of the government is similar but in fascism the underlying economic system is still capitalistic and market based, while in Soviet style communism it is nationalized and planned. It also ignores ideology, fascism is about asserting national and racial supremacy to the detriment of inferior races, communism is about seizing the means of production from the bourgeoisie and giving control to the proletariat. Even if the government structure is similar, the policies those governments enact are wildly different. Thats like saying reddit and lemmy are the same because they both work on up voted content percolating up.

          • Aux@lemmy.world
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            Yeah, right, fascism is so capitalistic! This is why Mussolini forced labour unions and nationalised 75% of the Italian economy. What a capitalist!

    • tpihkal@lemmy.world
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      Until the next tyrant came along. It’s a system that is always bound to fail.

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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        It is a system that never gets transitioned to fully. It doesn’t fail because it has basically never existed. If I invade your house, kill your father, and make you call me the milk man, that doesn’t make me a milk man.

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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    This meme doesn’t work, because in the scene the image comes from, we have every reason to believe Ron Swanson actually does know more than the employee at the hardware store.

    • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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      TBF I wouldn’t be surprised if survivors of a collapsed dictatorship didn’t know much about the definition, theories, or philosophies of Communism. Stalin isn’t “the working people” and therefor his seizure of the means of production was not communism.

  • Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    Some small business tyrant, who left the USSR when they were four and who doesn’t pay his staff, telling me how bad the Soviet Union was.

    • rodhlann@kbin.social
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      The vibe when you’re a 30 year old software developer and still could never afford a house in this economy…

      • JGrffn@lemmy.ml
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        30 year old software developer from a third world country here, 8 years of job experience on my CV. My 60k/year salary from working as a contractor for US companies puts me at around the top 99th percentile of salary earners in my country. I still cannot afford to buy a house and have instead opted to live with my parents until I’ve saved up enough to move out.

    • Erika2rsis@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      A ramble

      I’m replying to my own comment to add: I’m barely even joking about this. Which is to say, actually having personal experience of living in a country can be very useful in discussions of it, but we also need to be aware of the limitations of lived experience.

      For instance, I live in Norway, and I’ve met people here who didn’t know that they had suffrage in local elections, and who didn’t know the difference between national and local elections. I’ve met autistic people who know nothing about local autistic advocacy, trans people who know nothing about local trans advocacy, and I’ve met more people here who sincerely believe in “plandemic” conspiracy theories than who are even remotely aware of what Norwegian state-owned corporations have done in the global south. These people will go on and on about how “Americans are all idiots!” while simultaneously demonstrating a complete obliviousness to the actual political issues in their own backyards.

      So sometimes people just don’t know what they’re talking about, simple as that. Lived experience should be respected, obviously, but it is not absolute nor immune from criticism. There are plenty of things that I’ve learned about the country where I live from people who have never set a foot in it — even things that feel so basic that I’m really embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know them.

      And we need to be particularly aware of this effect with regard to those who were children and adolescents in the USSR. Those who turned 18 when the USSR dissolved would be 50 years old now. Those who turned 18 when Stalin died would be 88 years old now. This obviously doesn’t mean that you’ll have no opportunities to chat with people who lived a significant portion of their adult lives in the USSR, I have done this myself… And that guy basically said that living in the USSR was the time of his life. I suspect that this might’ve had something to do with how he was a popular musician in his home republic, and how he was a comparatively young adult in the 1980s. Nevertheless, it was interesting to learn how one of his songs was actually a load of anti-evolutionist nonsense, which to me indicated that Soviet censorship was perhaps not as strict as a lot of people say it was… And again, seeing a grainy video cassette rip of this guy on Sukhumi’s Red Bridge pointing to a giant monkey plush like a big ol’ doofus, shows how not everybody in the USSR was the sharpest tool in the shed (sorry, Anzor!)

      So if you find some 30-to-50-something year old who says that thon actually lived in the USSR and is therefore qualified to speak about it… Asking for thons lived experiences of the USSR is like asking a zoomer today for sy lived experiences of Dubya and Obama. Not to say that a child’s perspective is worthless, just that it will be a child’s perspective. Meanwhile, ask a 60-or-70-something year old, and chances are pretty good that you’ll get nostalgia goggles of young adulthood. Ask an 80+ year old, and… Where the hell are you gonna find one of those? Especially if you can’t speak Russian, your access to authentic Soviet perspectives is going to be severely limited.

      On the other hand, if you ask someone who left the USSR for political reasons for thons experiences, then that’s like asking someone who left the USA for political reasons for thons experiences: you’re gonna hear an overtly negative perspective, and maybe some of that perspective will be useful, but that perspective is also not going to be representative of the majority experience, and it could’ve even been twisted by outside factors (obviously praising your new country is gonna increase your mobility in your new country!). Paul Robeson said of the USSR that being in that country was “the first time [he] felt like a human being”.

      So, the best way to be educated about the USSR is through scholarly analysis, which takes into account the lived experiences of a broad range of people as they recounted their lives at the time, and which also considers the factors that the individuals might not have been aware of. We should always be open to hearing people out, obviously, but we also always need to remember that nobody has all the answers — and so sometimes the 14 year old white Yankee really does know her shit better than the guy who actually lived in the country.

  • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Pretty much Lemmy. I grew up in a communist civil war, hosing blood off my sidewalk was a weekly chore, the neighbors vanishing cause they pissed someone off and were labeled red. But yeah, Lemmy teens, you guys know all about it! /S

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Did you still use money to buy goods and services? Was your father able to do speak up at work? Change jobs? Go on vacations?

      Just because something called itself communism didn’t make it communism. The state owning everything is the opposite of communism. In extreme communism, there isn’t even a damn state as we know it.

      The people in the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea do not live in a democracy nor a republic.

      • mutter9355@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        The ussr may not have been communist, but it was definitely the initial goal. The idea of a revolution that leads to a dictatorship of the proletariat is inherently flawed. You just end up replacing a corrupt government with another corrupt government.

        • Album@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          The idea of a revolution that leads to a dictatorship of the proletariat is inherently flawed.

          Not all Communists are Marxist-Lenninists or Stalinist… But obviously Lenin and Stalin were. Non-ML Communists would agree with you.

        • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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          1 year ago

          Revolutions in general are only really good for replacing dictatorships and monarchies, it’s kind of like re-rolling your government with a high chance of getting the worst kind, so you only use it when your government is already the worst kind. Usually, Power Vacuum’s just get filled by whoever has the most military might.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          In many ways, yes. It is absolutely an ideal that is not compatible with current reality.

          That’s why anyone who’s remotely realistic about it understands it’s an end state of pushing for anarcho-socialistic policies, one that maybe cannot be achieved. Like saying, “Humanity will walk on the moon.” when it’s 1910. Conceivable? Kinda’. Possible? Hell no.

    • bouh@lemmy.world
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      This certainly never happens with liberalism. Africa has never seen war since democracy and liberalism freed it obviously. And putin is the prime example of a communist I guess.

    • CluckN@lemmy.world
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      Erm pushes up glasses that wasn’t real communism because real communism works.

      • loutr@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Well it’s the same for the free market really. On paper it’s a nice idea, but in practice it makes the world miserable because people are, in general, fucking selfish assholes.

      • Album@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Lol ya right?!

        The NSDAP was a real socialist party.

        The Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is actually democratic and governed by the people.

    • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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      Income share isn’t actually a good indicator of anything on its own. One would at the very least need to provide some sort of inflation chart and some sort of equivalent to a consumer price index. Like, it wouldn’t mean much if they all had the same income if that income couldn’t buy bread for example. not saying that was or was not the case, just using an example of how the given charts are meaningless on their own. That you provided them without even trying to provide context means you’re unaware of this and are ignorant to the issue or you’re actively misleading people.

  • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    … apart from that it’s also most unlikely it’s 14 year old girls who are the people writing this in online discussions.