I mean, respectfully, it’s tiring writing out so much on a phone screen. I think the discussions are important, but it’s the wrong format to have a long-form discussion, you know?

I hope you didn’t find my tone dismissive even though we disagree. It wasn’t meant to be. If your take-away was that I’m being dogmatic and make choices purely on ideological lines, I don’t think writing up paragraphs of text turned out to be a very effective at communicating what I wanted to say.

These discussions are better held in person because it’s difficult to capture nuance in writing without being long-winded.

It’s not that Norway and Sweden are “too integrated with capitalism” while being socialistic (or I would argue China is capitalist) but that these countries are explicitly not socialist at all. These are capitalist countries with social welfare programs and will therefore continue to suffer from the failures of the capitalist mode of production regardless of how many social welfare programs are introduced. Social welfare programs are not socialism. Capitalist and socialist countries both utilize social welfare programs. Capitalism and socialism are modes of organizing production and can be differentiated by exploring the following questions:

• Which class owns and controls the means of production and how the economy is organized? (Alternatively, who is the dictator? Until we are all in the same class, there will always be a dictatorship and oppressed people.) The workers and their parties = socialism, the financiers/owners and their parties = capitalism. There can be exceptions within a system, but one will be strongly favored.

• Is production aimed at profit or meeting human needs? Often has a messy answer, but profit will usually be favored under capitalism and usually at the expense of workers and their needs.

• Is the economy planned at a large scale or is it directed by the profit-seeking whims of the market? Socialist economies are centrally planned at a large scale and while corporations often use central planning, this is across companies, not entire industries. Capitalist economies are driven by the needs and desires of corporations rather than planned for the good of the country as a whole.

• Are key industries collectivized? In capitalism, they tend to be owned by individuals, in socialism, they tend to be nationalized or otherwise collectivized, though exceptions exist under both systems.

Norway, Sweden, and Russia all check the capitalist boxes. China checks the socialist boxes, but yes, oppression, inequality, and exploitation still exist as it is transitioning from capitalism to communism and the underlying class contradictions and subsequent conflict has not been resolved. They run a partially mixed economy because capitalist organization can be beneficial to building up industrial forces. You’ll also notice that they nationalize large and key industries before they became monopolies to prevent capital from holding parts of the economy hostage (as is often done in actual capitalist countries) and are shifting away from capitalist organization as a whole. It was a tool to modernize and does not make them defacto capitalist because capitalists never held political power.

I would never hold either Russia nor China up as some shining example of perfect countries. Russia is not socialist in any way and no socialist argues that they are. They happen to be be in a position that is directly opposed to US/Western imperialism right now, but not by choice. They hold this spot because the West forced them into it.

This is what socialists are arguing Russia is doing, not that they are a shining example of a socialist society that should be emulated. Socialists do not like Putin, but they do seek to understand him. To argue that socialists hold Russia up as a model country is to argue against a straw man.

I do argue that China is a socialist country despite their mixed economic system. Political control of the country resides in the hands of the communist party and the key industrial sectors and land is owned by the state rather than existing as private property. Again, I do not argue they are perfect. My argument is that they are a socialist project working towards communism and that undertaking such a change is a long and messy path that takes more than the 80 or so years the communist party has been in power. I think they genuinely aspire to accomplish the goals they say they are pursuing, but the road to liberation is messy and they definitely have made mistakes. To expect perfection at each individual moment along the path of change is unreasonable. Likewise, it’s not my country. I can learn from them and implement what I think works well in my own country. The Chinese people can direct their country as they see fit. Socialist projects are unique to their societies everywhere they spring up and no two will look the same.

I meant both this and the first comment to help explain these stances in good faith, but I get the feeling the first might not have been taken that way? I’ll leave any discussion of the topic here because the China one is deeper than I want to get into in an online thread. If you truly want to understand why socialists take these stances, I recommend you research socialist theory directly including the topic of imperialism as defined by Lenin and have some deep conversations with people who hold these views.

I hope this better explains not just why we argue what we do but what it is we are actually arguing for.

For the .ml instances, it is due to ideological opposition to porn because of it’s exploitation of workers and coercive/abusive practices.

If you want an actual answer, it’s because Sweden and Norway continue to participate in imperialism by propping up their economies through exploitation of the global south.

These are capitalist countries, social democracies, not socialist countries. The underlying contradictions that lead to problems under capitalism have not been resolved, so the problems inherent to capitalism persist. The only reason they seem better at this time is because of the exploitation of foreign workers and their participation in the financial models exploiting the global south.

It’s clear that the Nordic model of social democracy is unsustainable (because it’s just capitalism with more social reforms) and has slowly been eroding since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This unsustainability is also clearly recognized and discussed openly within those countries, which is why they explicitly state that the solutions are austerity or the exploration of foreigners.

I saw replies saying you got a TSH test done. While this is the “gold standard” used for testing thyroid function, it’s easily misleading. TSH levels are somewhat relative and do not tell the whole story. Doctors often label subclinically low TSH as “normal” but you may not feel normal.

The way hypothyroidism is diagnosed is dogshit these days and it’s quite common (1/4 women, more common as you age). If you have only seen an MD and one who is not specialized in endocrinology, I would get a second opinion. My experience is that nurse practioners and DOs are more likely to take this seriously than MDs.

While it’s possible it’s something else, I wouldn’t rule out hypothyroidism strictly from TSH. You can also request a wider thyroid panel that tests free/total T4 and T3, plus thyroid antibodies such as TPO. TSH only tests for the hormone telling your thyroid that your body needs hormones, it does not test for the hormones themselves. Additionally, it does not test for whether you have a thyroid autoimmune disease. This could lead to all your symptoms.

I’ve been through this struggle and known plenty of others who have as well (Hashimoto’s, began in my mid/late twenties). Modern doctors underdiagnose the disease because of they leave it at a TSH test and will often shrug you off with a vitamin D prescription. Go to someone who specializes in this, check your symptoms against those of others and pay particular attention to how they describe how they feel. Trust your intuition about your own body and what feels normal.

Brain fog, body aches, feeling cold all the time, lethargy, waking up feeling like you can never get enough sleep or like your brain is awake but your body isn’t, depression, hair loss, weight gain, poor appetite…these are all signs to look for, but unfortunately are shared with many diseases. You thyroid hormones control so much of your energy and everything surrounding it.

If this ends up being the problem, you can take a simple and cheap thyroid hormone replacement daily and everything will improve. There are natural and synthetic replacements, if you are put on one type and don’t like it, try the other one. Synthetic T4 and T3 or armor thyroid/natural pig thyroid (contains T1-T4).

Good luck and I truly hope you can find how to feel better!

Wikipedia covers war criminals in Canada decently.

Canada made it easier for Nazis to immigrate than for Jewish refugees after WWII due to their anti-communist policies. Since then, the government has largely refused to release information about their immigration policies surrounding former Nazis as well as the list of immigrants found to be former Nazi party members.

The controversy surrounding parliament giving a standing ovation to a former Waffen SS member for his service “fighting the Russians” brought much of this to mainstream discourse. Who was fighting the Russians during WWII? The Nazis. If a country invited a bunch of Nazis to their nation, has a long history of antisemitism that contributed to deaths in the Holocaust, and are still celebrating and protecting Nazi war criminals…I think its fair to call them a Nazi cesspool. If they don’t want to be characterized this way, they should probably take actions to prove they aren’t, such as releasing the names of the known war criminals and extradite them for trial.

You can find plenty of news articles on these topics from a couple years ago.