I hate how this race to the bottom makes China look better and better each year. Fucking China! Good job assholes! The US is getting dangerously close to becoming just as bad… Well, except for the about to be fucking poor like Russia part.

Also European here. And just to bring some more up to date examples.

My colleague bought a nice big flat some 5 odd years ago. If he wanted to buy the exact same thing today, he literally wouldn’t be able to afford it, not even with much worse terms. For the same money he’d need to move to some small dinky house in the countryside.

My aunt bought a flat 7 years ago for almost 1.5 million CZK, and then 2 years later one for 2 mil. Today, they’re both worth at least 10 each.

Income has not grown like that in the past decade. These are arguably successful people that literally wouldn’t be able to recreate their success today, only a few years later. Shit’s going down hill and it’s going down hill fast.

So for me and my GF, buying a house is a pipe dream. We just about manage renting our current flat, which is already cheap, we both earn comfortably above average and she even works overtime often enough. Buying a house or having a child are literally crippling decisions.

The trans aliens ofc.

Oh awesome, can’t wait to explain how I got a porn site email.

The US has no extradition treaty with China (or similar). So that would likely fall under spying and the “coercing a New Jersey man wanted by Beijing into returning to China” part is very much a major step over the line.

Edit: Also jeez people, he’s just asking relatively reasonable questions form ignorance, stop tearing him a new one! Being wrong shouldn’t immediately be cause for such backslash.

That’s the kinda logic used to defend the upper class. “What did he really do?” Hyper focusing on specifics, rather than the actual act.

Acting as a foreign agent, directly operating under the orders of a foreign government under the jurisdiction of a sovereign country is a bit of a no go. No matter if it’s China or not. We here in Europe have similar events with American spies every dozen years (and Russian and Chinese too ofc).

The stuff you mention about handing out valid Chinese IDs is mostly irrelevant flavor text. It’s iffy maily because it was an unofficial station in the eyes of the US. Official embassies fulfill such roles too without issue.

Aye, it’s curious how one’s upbringing affects their hearing. The Americans I interacted with can’t tell the Czech P and B apart. Which I find fucking weird as mixing them up in Czech results in absolute gibberish. Probably similar to how TH and F sound the same to me.

Syria is quite a long ways from China. Makes me wonder how serious they are. Then again, such operations aren’t a foreign concept in the middle east, so what do I know?

Do you really enjoy throwing out meaningless quips? I’m genuinely curious since I don’t see any engagement, but a surprising amount of replies.

That’s not how science works. For anything to have value it needs peer review. In the case of history that means additional accounts by other people (ideally with different backgrounds) and ideally physical evidence like documents and other archeological finds. This is especially important in history, as every single piece of evidence is faulty due to distortion through bias. A single primary source all alone is literally worth shit. The last book provides multiple lengthy accounts from different primary sources and so at least meets the minimum requirement for not being immediately throw out.

Blackshirts also literally mentions some of the authoritarian issues I mentioned that you denied. The fact that in some cases it failed to properly adress the needs of the people due to abuse of power and how the structure it self accidently encouraged selfish self defeating behavior. I just added comments about party members basically being a separate class (because of the unrivaled abuse of power you refuse to dispute, while providing a book also mentioning it), while the book debunks western propaganda.

You can say I misunderstand communist theory, that’s a valid criticism. But saying you refuse to engage because my understanding of history is false is dogmatic bullshit. Saying I’m unwilling to change my mind is rich when you literally just say I’m wrong, give me a book largely discussing a different topic (western propaganda and fascism) and then refuse to provide examples for your own claims. While my claims are dubious third hand accounts at best, you somehow managed to stoop below me.

The first two books are theory with random anecdotes with the same citation count as my shit. If that constitutes history, than so does the Bible.

Tho I apologize for lumping then all together as the last book is actually somewhat more interesting (like actually having fucking citations). It rightfully outlines western propaganda, highlights what good happened in the USSR and what bad in the west. Tho if you actually read the thing, you’d notice IT’S JUST AS CIRTICAL OF THE SOVIET UNION! Read it your self! It mostly defends the USSR from western propaganda, but it doesn’t do the same mistake you did and just deny the structural issues. Sadly it doesn’t say much, as it is very much focused on critiquing the west (like the first 50%), so I kinda just dismissed it at first.

Also you completely skipped my request to provide a single example for your previous claim, sad.

Yes… I was saying the theory doesn’t match the situation on the ground. And the links you gave are all theory, which I at no point argued about.

The “separate class” I mentioned was also less of a theory reference, and more of a reality on the ground. Party members are treated differently. My grandpa was a party member back in the western block and had privileges regular folk didn’t. Like traveling around the globe and importing foreign “imperialist” goods seemingly at will. My mom stood out with his gifts, like wearing jeans.

Also you say they have accountability with stuff like recall elections, but I’d like to invite you to provide an example of this actually happening. Like genuinely, I can’t find any. All I find is officials being ousted by other officials, never by regular everyday people. As an example of completely dodging consequences, I’d mention that soviet countries and China both tried becoming leading grain exporters while their populations fucking starved, and people complaining were just labeled liars and thieves!

Which reminds me of a saying we used to have: “Kdo nekrade, okrádá rodinu” or “Who doesn’t steal, is stealing from their family”. A very different context from the one above, but it paints a pretty vivid picture, so I think it’s still worth sharing.

I just feel like creating a class of people with absolute control that mustn’t be questioned under threat of absolute annihilation is a spit in the face of the most core socialist let alone communist values.

They both have one body dictating what the people’s needs are that mustn’t under any circumstance be challenged. Making the whole “according to needs” part null and void. Both have histories of completely neglecting their citizens in favor of pursuing imperial ambitions.

Also not calling anybody capitalist. Saying it’s not really communism isn’t the same as saying it’s capitalism. So considering your comment I feel the need to also express that my second paragraph is in no way saying other countries haven’t done the same under other systems like capitalism. Just covering my ass, feeling the ugly head of pointless what aboutism approaching.

Wtf are those even good for? My pencil case from back in the day alone would take up like a third of the while thing. Does an A4 even fit on it?

Brutal oversimplification is an understatement to what just happened here xD

Only if there are no checks and balances. The typical “communist” regimes like Russia and China can hardly be called communist by any definition. Just like nobody would call nazi’s socialist, despite it being in their name (national socialism).

Fucking “I take all and ya’ll better belive I’ll redistribute favorably or fucking die” is hardly even left. I especially hate when people say “in theory it makes sense, but in reality…”, no it fucking doesn’t even in theory!

Not earing the turnip?

You’ll notice that organized crime (ya know, as a metric of success) doesn’t usually rely on robberies as their source of income. Robberies are risky and stupid.

I’ve literally never had anybody in my life experience multiple riots, lock downs due to a crazed gunman shooting up his black neighbor and people crashing, burning and dieing in their yard probably due to drunk driving EVER, until I made some American friends. Visiting them was also a trip, fuck they’re paranoid, and honestly I’m not even surprised. You people have police officers stationed at SCHOOLS for crying out loud, how more fucked can it get?!? If I was forced to live in the states I’d also go fucking crazy.

Wait, how the fuck are only Central Europe, Finland and Estonia in support of encryption. What the actual fuck people?