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Cake day: July 12th, 2023

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  • darthelmet@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlCapitalism is the root of evil
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    6 days ago

    It’s not really about defending the bad stuff. It’s about trying to get some more nuance on perhaps the most propagandized topic of the 20th century.

    There are all sorts of interesting discussions to have about the various failings of these countries amongst other leftists who have the relevant context as a starting point for a reasonable discussion.

    But when talking to libs/conservatives, they’re coming into the conversation with an already extremely warped, un-nuanced perspective. “These are all evil dictatorships that were also super incompetent and that shows why communism is bad.”

    Some of the stuff they base this on is either exaggerated or just straight up wrong. Some of it is completely valid criticism, but without the context to understand the issue or provide a useful critique.

    How do you have any meaningful conversation about these countries without acknowledging things like:

    • All of these countries were previously agrarian, un-democratic societies.
    • Most of them were formerly exploited colonies who had to fight fairly brutal wars for their independence.
    • Even after leaving, the imperialists kept messing with them through economic and diplomatic isolation and espionage including supporting right wing coups.

    We don’t have the counterfactual where we see what these countries would have turned out like without these challenges, but it’s an incomplete analysis to not at least consider the ways which they impacted both their economic success and their political developments. Maybe you could argue there were better ways to respond to all of this, but hindsight is 20-20.

    No actual leftists want to have to argue “authoritarianism was good actually.” But it’s hard for the conversation not to appear that way when we’re arguing with people who’ve been conditioned to think they’re somehow as bad or worse than Nazis and ending the thought there.


  • Even if it would, how would it ever get passed when the people who would need to pass it are the ones who are only in office because the system works the way it currently does?

    This is just a recurring theme I’ve found when talking with liberals. They like to think about and suggest all sorts of policy ideas as though all we’re missing are some smart ideas nobody has thought of. It’s one thing to say we should have this, but it’s another to have any idea of how it’d be possible to do. Since they have no actual analysis of the system, they’ll just turn around and tell you to vote or call your representative. “We should get money out of politics!” “Yeah, well we checked with the people giving us money and they said no. So…”


  • We live in a country that was stolen then we stole some other people so they could do the work for us. Then conquering half a continent wasn’t good enough for us, so we went around ruining other places if they didn’t want to give us all their stuff. If people think we only recently crossed a line, I’d generously hope they were just ignorant because the alternative is horrific. Every piece of the past is a step that got us to where we are.


  • You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard for publishers with billions of dollars to hire enough competent devs for enough time to make a halfway decent storefront, especially when they don’t even have to reinvent the wheel on a lot of UX and marketing research that’s already been done for them by Steam existing as long as it’s had.

    That none of them have even come close to that is a monument to their incompetence.


  • I’ve watched a few older original movies here and there on streaming at home, but I guess the last time I went to the theater for one was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I don’t really go to the theater much in general anymore. Last time I went was for Dune 2 (mostly because I like the director more so than I’m interested in the franchise) and it was so loud I thought it was going to damage my eardrums.

    That aside, if I’m gonna go see something, I want some reason that isn’t just brand recognition. A director I like, some good reviews, maybe an interesting premise, etc.


  • Oh god. I was reading through the page and this gem was down in the section on the response from healthcare companies:

    Another executive was quoted saying “What’s most disturbing is the ability of people to hide behind their keyboards and lose their humanity.”

    Says the people who hide behind keyboards, phone calls, employees, doctors, guards, police as they hurt people they don’t know. Talk about losing your humanity.










  • darthelmet@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlAmazing app ideas
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    11 months ago

    It’s crazy that this is real. It looks like a comic someone would make to make fun of the idea. Like the fact that they’re watching some guy shoot someone, then the burger commercial comes on and the guy stands up and cheers “McDonalds!” Before sitting back down to watch more of guy shooting other guy.

    This is peak “dumb Americans” humor, and they’re using this unironically to describe their business idea.


  • Yeah. It’s more like:

    Researchers: “Look at our child crawl! This is a big milestone. We can’t wait to see what he’ll do in the future.

    CEOs: Give that baby a job!

    AI stuff was so cool to learn about in school, but it was also really clear how much further we had to go. I’m kind of worried. We already had one period of AI overhype lead to a crash in research funding for decades. I really hope this bubble doesn’t do the same thing.




  • Not that this has anything to do with Jan 6th since it was just right wingers throwing a hissy fit, but elections in America don’t work. People aren’t given real alternatives to the establishment through all sorts of structural barriers. The government doesn’t represent people’s interests to any statistically significant degree. When you consider the US’s efforts to coup left wing governments around the world, it’s easy to extrapolate that if we ever were to successfully elect someone who could enact real change, the military/intelligence agencies would step in to stop them.

    You don’t need to defend our broken system just to call right wingers fascists. If anything their prominence is an indictment of our system. That our government is more open to people who want to subjugate the majority of the country and violate our supposed constitutional rights than people who represent the majority of the country tells you all you need to know about American “democracy.” And before you say it, no, it’s not because a lot of people want fascism, they’re still in the minority by far, but our electoral process is set up to favor them over more majoritarian interests.