The Nordic countries are allowed to do what they do because the cost benefit calculation was that it was easier to secure their loyalty by allowing them some progressive policies (likewise, this is why the US historically invested in a handful of regions like Germany, Taiwan, and South Korea). But there are many countries in the global south that have tried to follow the Nordic model, the trouble is, they’re not allowed to because the cost-benefit analysis is different. When they try, the CIA overthrows them and installs a dictator who will enact exploitative policies and keep the cheap goods flowing. When they take steps to stop that from happening, Western leftists denounce them as “authoritarian.”

Science and research are followed in AES (actually existing socialism) countries. Look at the response to COVID, for example. While in the US, people where crowding into stores to panic buy toilet paper, Vietnam was delivering free groceries directly to the doorsteps of people under lockdown.

What are the examples of “bad” socialism “benefiting the wealthy rather than the majority?” Socialist states, including Vietnam, Cuba, China, etc have implemented policies that have improved people lives by any objective metric, literacy, life expectancy, doctors and teachers per capita, etc. Granted, they sometimes have little choice but to allow some economic concessions, as a condition to participate in the global market. China’s reforms in the 80’s lead to 800 million people being lifted out of extreme poverty, for example. When a country doesn’t make such concessions and gets sanctioned or blockaded, things tend to go very poorly for them, which also gets held up as a “failure of socialism.” Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

If you actually evaluate AES countries, based on reasonable expectations or on what they had before, they are not failures at all. The problem is that people don’t understand the challenges and threats that they have to navigate, and so they have unreasonable, impossible expectations of them. Again, I wish we lived in a world where it was possible to simply copy-paste social democratic policies into the global south, but it isn’t. History has proven quite clearly that that isn’t the world we live in. Y’all just never bother to actually study the histories of global south countries, so you don’t understand the severity of the threats they face.

I actually agree with that analysis completely. If you really press me, I would say yes, pull the lever in the trolley problem. But the problem is trying to take that as a principle to be applied to other situations. When we actually look at practical situations, there are all sorts of other factors specific to that situation that need to be evaluated, and it’s rare that the difference actually comes down to whether or not you’re applying a utilitarian framework. That sort of thinking also limits what kinds of solutions we’re prone to consider.

The actual, real world solution to the trolley problem would be first of all tracking down whoever’s tying people to tracks and making them stop, and implementing better safety mechanisms to prevent trolleys from getting out of control. These solutions are things pretty much everyone can agree with, regardless of their moral framework. And I would expect that even if someone in that situation made the wrong decision from a given framework, people would see them as faced with an impossible choice in a traumatic situation, and even if they made the right decision, it wouldn’t be considered “problem solved.”

What is more useful in informing our actual moral decision making is to pull examples from actual reality, in cases that are actually relevant to the decision in question. Because of the doctor example, you cannot just say, “This is like the trolley problem so we should do this,” in practical cases, because real life is more complex.

I used to be somewhere in the neighborhood of anarchist/social democrat, the way most people on lemmy who aren’t MLs are. I was just as “anti-tankie” as anyone.

While trying to really define what I believed, I stumbled across Progress and Poverty by Henry George, and it really clicked for me. It made the case that no one should have a specific right of ownership over land and natural resources, so they should be considered publicly owned and used to fund the state. Without getting into the details of the idea itself, I was convinced that it could work, as a compromise that would fix the worst parts of capitalism and essentially get the best parts of both. That, if it were enacted in a few small countries and able to compete on a level playing field, it would prove itself successful and serve as a model for everyone to follow. But this raised the question of, if that’s true, why hasn’t it happened already?

This question caused me to take an interest in a bunch of random small countries around the world that had experimented with asserting state control over their natural resources, and using them to fund social spending for the benefit of the people. And what did I find? Let’s look at a case study.

Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran was the prime example for me, because he wasn’t a Marxist at all, he had no ties whatsoever to the USSR, and did everything right. He attempted to assert control over Iran’s oil, which had been stolen outright by the British on a massive scale, in order to use it to uplift the people, who were incredibly poor and destitute. He believed in and upheld democratic ideals, and that exactly how the CIA was able to freely operate in Iran and oust him in favor of a literal monarchy.

Mossadegh refused to censor the press, when the CIA controlled 90% of the newspapers in the country, which constantly printed negative stories about him. He refused to suppress demonstrations, when the CIA was hiring them to march, both against him, and for him while wrecking shit and turning people against him. Finally, a US diplomat fed him a false story about the embassy receiving death threats from his supporters, and he was so moved, and so concerned about remaining friendly with the US, that he put out a radio message instructing his supporters to stand down. The next day, the CIA attacked his residence and there was no one to come to his aid.

It took me a long time to really wrestle with the full implications of that case study, and the similar stories that I found all around the world. But what I eventually realized is that the reason so many socialist states are authoritarian is not because they just want to be, it’s survivorship bias. And while the US is able to act as a global hegemon, the kind of system that I idealized, the kind of system Mossadegh was trying to build, will never be allowed to compete fairly. In fact, it is precisely because it might work to fix the worst parts of capitalism that it cannot be permitted, because a lot of powerful people get very, very rich off of those parts. It’s not about the food, it’s about keeping those ants in line.

I would much rather live in the world where the Marxist-Leninists were wrong. I would love it if countries around the world could try out all sorts of different systems, without fear of outside interference, so that different systems could compete and rise or fall on their own merits. If, when I looked into history I had found something different, I’d probably still agree with the criticisms I did before. But, unfortunately, that’s just not the world we live in. When you actually study history, what you’ll find in nearly every case is that the US tried to meddle in their affairs, to the detriment of the average person, and they were successful whenever they were not suppressed by force.

And that’s how I became a “tankie.”

There are obviously huge black marks in US history from that to slavery to the genocide of the natives to overthrowing democratically elected governments around the world to things like MK-ULTRA, Jim Crow, redlining, etc. etc. But even among purely symbolic things that don’t materially impact people’s lives, it pales in comparison to Mt. Rushmore, which was a thousand times more gaudy, more narcissistic, and which destroyed something a thousand times more valuable. “The most shameful stains,” come on.

I don’t know what’s going on in the minds of these people. Some combination of ignorance of history, partisan brainworms, and misplaced pride in the symbols of our shitty government. It’s so cringe, it’s peak liberalism and shit like this validates the whole “Trump derangement syndrome” line, because there’s no way in hell any of these people would give half a shit if someone else was doing it.

I’m not sure I’d want to live in that world.

A moral code is something that you adopt because, in calm reflection and rational analysis, you have determined that it’s the best approach to producing desirable outcomes. The reason for having a code instead of just evaluating things in the moment is because of the recognition that your judgement can be compromised, by being tempted, by being angry, by not having time in the heat of the moment, etc.

Personally, I’d say that every rule has exceptions and that you should be willing to break a rule in extraordinary circumstances. For a recovering alcoholic, “don’t drink” is a good rule to have, but if there’s some convoluted hypothetical with a serial killer holding hostages demanding that you take a shot, then you can make an exception. But that exception does not invalidate the rule, which is generally a good thing to follow. And you should be extremely cautious about whether the exception is actually valid, or whether it’s just your brain inventing excuses.

I don’t think that being too rigid in upholding a code is “narcissistic” or “egotistical.” In fact, it’s often just the opposite. It may be precisely because Batman is aware of his own flaws that he doesn’t trust himself to break the rule, without his judgement becoming compromised.

Is it ethical for a doctor to kill one healthy person in order to harvest their organs to save five people in need of a transplant?

And while we’re at it, unicorns for everyone!

The whole ballroom thing does not matter at all and the article is just random tweets and the tweets are shit like:

The fact that a felonious madman who incited an attack on our Capitol could turn around a few years later and desecrate the White House like this, will forever be one of the most shameful stains this nation has ever known.

“One of the most shameful stains this nation has ever known?” Are you fucking kidding me? It’s a fucking building.

well established in general usage.

Only in the US. The “Liberal Democrats” in the UK are not understood to be the opposite of the Tories, and there are many similar cases in countries around the world.

The reason liberal is understood to mean the opposite of conservative in the US is only because historically socialism became such a dirty word, liberals did everything they could to distance themselves from it, and there was no major socialist party or movement.

Since socialism has become resurgent, it makes more sense, especially on an international platform like this one, to adopt the internationally understood meaning.

The fediverse was developed such that you don’t have to agree with the devs to use it. Unlike corporate social media, you’re free to set up an instance that’s rabidly at odds with the dev’s viewpoints.

Given that, if the devs criticizing the US is so “controversial” that you won’t touch any instance on the fediverse, if you demand that the devs speak in a bland, focus-group tested way, even though you’re not subject to their authority by their own design, then you should probably just stay on corporate social media. Facebook, for example, has a single authority with a marketing team that carefully curates their messaging to appeal as much as possible to a wide audience. We are not Facebook.

The devs built Lemmy as a passion project, and are not just looking to grow it to sell to some venture capitalist firm.

Anything you do to act against or weaken a given state tends to benefit that state’s rivals. Unless you have some switch you can flip to overthrow every government at once, then either you refrain from meaningfully opposing your government or you make peace with the possibility that another government may benefit from your actions.

There are cases where leftists should refrain from opposing their government, for example, during WWII, it wasn’t the best time to strike or revolt if you lived in the US. On the other hand, in WWI every side was relatively the same, so there was no need to put class war on hold, it doesn’t matter if German capitalists or French capitalists came out on top, so both German and French workers would have been justified to strike and disrupt and revolt, even though French workers doing so would benefit German capitalists and vise versa.

Therefore, this “oppose all states” line is reductive. If someone paints the PRC as being so bad that they’re a threat on par with the Nazis, so we should put class war in the US on hold in order to stop them, then we need to evaluate whether or not that’s actually true. Which means first making the assessment, and then, if we assess that it’s not that serious of a threat, that means “defending” it (at least to an extent), it means saying things that will get you labelled as a tankie. If, on the other hand, you don’t do that, if you concede even the most extreme and far-fetched claims about them, then either you must also concede that we should drop everything to fight them, or you must adopt the unreasonable stance of weakening a state that stands between you and something equivalent to the Nazis.

Any actual opposition to a government (as opposed to opposition merely in principle) means at least being ok with that government’s geopolitical rivals benefitting from the internal conflict. Actual opposition will almost always mean getting accused of supporting enemy states (whether you do or not), or at least of not taking their threat seriously enough. It’s necessary to have an answer for why you’re not rallying around the flag to fight off that supposedly greater evil.

The slavery doesn’t count, that’s prepolitical because they had to have them

What in the ideology?

“Ladies, Gentlemen, and the rest (of you).”

It seems the lesson they learned wasn’t “don’t do genocide” so much as “get someone else to do your dirty work to avoid being held accountable for genocide.”

That kind of honesty on craigslist is a rarity.

This is literally what happened before to get us to Trump, and it’s on track to keep happening.

Bush was a violent extremist who started multiple wars of aggression and had people tortured in all sorts of horrific ways (some of whom were later proven innocent). But he also occasionally said not to be openly racist against all Muslims. The failure of the “War on Terror” was because of the aggression, and because of the wanton violence, torture, and disrespect for basic rights. But, the lesson people, especially on the right, took from that, was that the Bush administration lost because it was too humane, too “woke.”

So they went to Trump, who was openly racist, who appointed Hegseth, who, well, is Hegseth. And he still lost in Iran. Rather than questioning whether their ideas about the effectiveness of cruelty, the right concludes that the problem was that they still weren’t cruel enough.

Go back even further, it’s the same shit with Vietnam. Dropping agent orange all over the place, slaughtering villages, just extreme cruelty, but the propaganda was about “nation-building,” about “liberating” the Vietnamese. So when they lost, they blamed the equivalent of “woke,” they blamed the limp-wristed politicians who supposedly tied the hands of the military.

When President Fuentes gets his ass kicked invading wherever the fuck, the right will just say he was too woke and will vote for someone who changed his name to Adolf Hitler. It’ll continue until they start a nuclear war and end all life on earth.

Fundamentally, because right-wing ideas are just wrong and don’t produce the results they expect them to, the people who hold them will grow increasingly frustrated and increasingly extreme, thinking they just need to go further and try harder, never questioning the approach itself.

It’s socialism or barbarism. The “middle road” of aggression and interventionism while pretending to be nice, that’s going to keep failing and the more it fails the more it fuels their narratives. We need to put an end to the aggression altogether, to put an end to foreign wars. We need to ditch the notion that our acts of violence and terror were ever driven by some kind of “benevolence,” and instead denounce them for the brazen acts of imperialist plundering that they are. No war in Iran, no aid to Israel. Full stop.

This article is hilarious. What planet is the author living on?

First off, religious people generally don’t give a shit about these kinds of “gotchas” or contradictions, because their beliefs and texts are full of contradictions to start with. Second, nobody expects someone like Trump, who is not a religious leader, to have exactly correct answers to theological questions. Third, nothing he said there is really all that bad.

If people are pushing back (the article is very light on actual examples), it’s because the midterms, and the failed policies leading to them, have weakened his status as a “sacred cow.”

The article is complete nonsense.

They also want to avoid left-wing priorities such as ending US support for Israel or abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

These people are so useless.

The people are done with being told we have to tighten our belts while watching billions of dollars be sent abroad to fund war and genocide. Before Trump, that was the message that “centrists” of both parties pushed, with regards to Afghanistan and elsewhere. Then, the Trump administration made the insane decision to attack Iran and talk publicly about how gas prices were soaring because everyone just had to tighten their belts for the sake of “liberating” the Iranians. That’s the single biggest reason the Republicans got slaughtered in the midterms! Now they want to keep going all in on Israel, because it’s not a “kitchen table issue?” It is absolutely a kitchen table issue!

The Democrats took a hard right shift on immigration in 2024, running as border hawks, trying to push the line that they were the ones who would actually go after immigrants, and as a result, they lost the Latino vote. Now, Trump has been sending ICE to raid workplaces, going after citizens and non-citizens alike, people live in fear going about their daily lives, businesses in Latino communities have seen their customer base either locked up or to afraid to come out. I happened to see a Latino mall the other day and there were all sorts of signs posted declaring that ICE did not have permission to enter. How on earth is this not a “kitchen table issue?” I guess didn’t realize that phrase meant specifically white people’s kitchen tables.

You want to argue the mandate is limited in scope and doesn’t extend to “culture war” issues, fine. But they’re acting like there isn’t a mandate at all! If they won’t address these issues, then what on earth would they be addressing?

One time this Taiwanese guy showed up to a board game group and when he found out I was sympathetic to China he told me:

If you want to know more about the cultural and historical reason causing the seemingly crazy Chinese expanding ambitions. I highly recommend you read this book. It explains why Xi is being so aggressive these years and why it’s almost inevitable. It’s not the same logic most people in the world understand. Even most Chinese people aren’t aware it.

And he linked me to “The China Order” by Fei-Ling Wang. I skimmed it, and it was complete drivel.

The central thesis is that Europe developed a peaceful Westphalian model that led it to respect the sovereignty of states, throughout it’s history and into the present day (somehow ignoring the entire history of colonialism, the Cold War, etc), while China’s historical model was based around “tianxia” which basically means that it ruled the known world, which is why it will always be a big evil meanie out to conquer the world.

Apparently this is a whole genre. Taking random snippets from China’s thousands of years of extremely varied history and picking out anything that supports the thesis that China is just inherently evil. There’s tons of works with similar theses written by white people, but I really can’t be assed to skim more than one, Fei-Ling immigrated from China to the US and has a doctorate, and he still writes this crap, in a university press, I can’t even imagine how bad the shit written by “China watchers” and pundits gets.

What’s funny to me about this is that I once watched a film made during WWII produced by the US government, “Why We Fight: The Battle for China” which made the rather dubious claim that China had, “never once waged an aggressive war in it’s 4000 years of history.” Change your posture towards the US, and your entire history going back thousands of years gets rewritten.

It’s just so lazy and childish to paint all of Chinese history with such a ridiculously large brush like that, it’s unbelievable.