Not off the top of my head, no, but my point is that the principles themselves were not Marxist nor Communist

So, just a vibe check then?

In what manner? Vibes?

Lol, in the same way as the Khmer Rouge…you never extrapolated how they were feudal to begin with.

Mao was not a deinustrialist, nor was he a nationalist. Yes, different forms of revolution are required, but intentionally setting the clock on progress backwards, rather than forwards, is inherently a reactionary position, which became self admitted!

First of all, I don’t think anyone can rightly claim Mao wasn’t a nationalist. He was an ardent anti imperialist and he wasn’t an ethno-nationalist, but still a nationalist at heart. Secondly progress is relative to the revolution, Cambodia prior to the revolution was for the most part dependent on substance farming. Adapting a centralized apparatus to control the economy is still progress.

but he was never operating under Marxist principles. At most, he took inspiration from the Chinese revolution with regards to the agrarian focus, but instead focused on deindustrialization and nationalism.

They didn’t deindustrialze, they were never industrialized to begin with.

More vibes.

Hilarious considering your arguments have been completely vibe based. Even when I ask you specify your claims… Nope just vibes.

He had denounced Marx and created a form of Feudalism.

When did he denounce Marx, do you have a quote?

Also, the same accusations of feudalism can be charged at North Korea.

His “agrarian Communism” was an expliciy rejection of Marxism from the get-go, as his concept of deindustrialization goes directly against Marxism

Or as the maoist say, Marxism with Chinese characteristics. The same charges could have been levied at aspects of the cultural revolution. Different forms of revolution are required for different forms of societal structures and limitations. The vanguard approach is not exactly going to fly in a mostly agrarian culture.

you have nothing in common with Communism except the name, you have to justify why you believe yourself to be Communist.

Lol, that’s not up to you to interpret. You are conflating nearly 50 years of history to a single decade. I could make very similar arguments about the Soviet Union based on just the 80’s as well.

I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re just trying to distance communism from a regime no one can morally defend. Nearly all the arguments you made have been levied at China, Korea, Russia, or Cuba at some point, but we tend to defend them because the ends mostly justify the means.

don’t believe I made the point that contemporaries criticized their fascism outright, I made the point that they were fascist and rejected Marx. Calling them Communist isn’t accurate in any way, plus they were stopped by the Vietnamese Communists.

I think what’s pertinent to the original argument was that they were communist while the Khmer Rouge were committing their atrocities. Labeling a country that transitioned from communism to fascism as a purely fascist government is misleading and reductive.

Also, being opposed to a communist government does not mean you’re automatically a fascist. As we know communist China attacked communist Vietnam right after the US Vietnam war.

The history of geopolitics in Asia is very complicated and cannot be summed up in a short Lemmy comment

It’s no more complicated than the history of European geopolitics. As an Asian person, I get told this by western people a lot. I think it’s just a hold over from the western interpretation of the east being based in mystery. Also, the complications of any topic does not validate the type of misleading/reductive comment you made.

my point was to distance Pol Pot from Communism, because he wasn’t a Communist and denounced Communism, nor did he implement Socialism.

I think this is completely inaccurate depending on what time you are talking about. I would say Pol Pot was probably one of the most ardent communist of the 50’s, it was just a weird type of agrarian communism. And in the regions he controlled he did attempt to construct a classless agrarian socialist society.

Pol Pot didn’t really divert from communism until the 80’s and that was a last ditch effort to get the west to support his failing regime. I don’t particularly believe that “We chose communism because we wanted to restore our nation. We helped the Vietnamese, who were communist. But now the communists are fighting us. So we have to turn to the West and follow their way.” constitutes as denouncing Marxism.

China, the USSR, and North Korea were/are Socialist, and should be judged as such, for better and for worse. Pol Pot and the gang were not, so judging them as though they were is just silly.

You haven’t supported the argument that the Khmer Rouge were never communist… Now I’m willing to compromise and say they transitioned away from communism as did the Russians, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that they were communist at some point.

How exactly was Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge not communist in the 50s-70’s?

Khmer Rouge was backed by the US and was lead by fascists who rejected Marx, like the Nazis.

I think that’s a highly misleading and highly reductionist interpretation. The Khmer Rouge was supported by the US, but mostly after the conflict had ended.

The Khmer Rouge was overwhelmingly supported by the CCP, especially during the Vietnam war, and before the Chinese invasion of Vietnam afterwards.

Also, PolPot wasn’t criticized for his diversion from Marxism until the 80’s, well after the most turbulent times in Cambodia. And even then Deng Xiaoping only criticised the Khmer Rouge for engaging in “deviations from Marxism-Leninism”

The only person on the left who accused him of being a fascist was Hoxha, but that was after his schism with the maoist. So to him any communist Asian was basically a barbaric fascist.

If however a country would be prepared to cut through the red tape and have a standard design developed for say 10 plants at the same time, the price and construction time would be decreased greatly.

That’s a pretty big ask for a democratic government where half of the politicians are actively sabotaging climate initiatives…

The only countries where this is really feasible are places where federal powers can supersede the authority of local governments. A nuclear based power grid in America would require a complete reorganization of state and federal authority.

The only way anyone thinks nuclear energy is a viable option in the states is if they completely ignore the political realities of American government.

For example, is it physically possible for us to build a proper deep storage facility for nuclear waste? Yes, of course. Have we attempted to build said deep storage facility? Yes, since 1987. Are we any closer to finishing the site after +30 years…no.

No, it won’t. That’s the point of the misconception. You even get to it later then dismiss. We aren’t taking about overall health. We aren’t talking about the 'betes.

I mean, whenever you are talking about health you always consider total outcomes. The articles you are linking are talking about a very specific type of dehydration.

None of those things will dehydrate you more despite people saying differently. Not soda, not milk, even beer under 2% beer will be better. You will be rehydrated, there WILL be a net gain of water in your body. There is no net loss of water no matter how much people say sugar or caffeine will lower the net gain.

“Beverages with more concentrated sugars, such as fruit juices or colas, are not necessarily as hydrating as their lower-sugar cousins. They may spend a little more time in the stomach and empty more slowly compared to plain water, but once these beverages enter the small intestine their high concentration of sugars gets diluted during a physiological process called osmosis. This process in effect “pulls” water from the body into the small intestine to dilute the sugars these beverages contain. And technically, anything inside the intestine is outside your body. Juice and soda are not only less hydrating, but offer extra sugars and calories that won’t fill us up as much as solid foods, explained Majumdar. If the choice is between soda and water for hydration, go with water every time. After all, our kidneys and liver depend on water to get rid of toxins in our bodies”

From your own article…

If you’re dehydrated, you’re lacking salt. There’s a reason why physically demanding companies provide free drink packets to their crews. They don’t want road crews dying by the side of the road because they slammed water and had no salt on a 100 degree day working next to a machine shooting out molten tar and rock. We aren’t pumping people’s blood full of sterile water. Saline bags are .9% salt for a reason.

Again, you are talking about a specific type of dehydration… hyponatremia is exceedingly rare and is usually a sign of an undiagnosed kidney disease. Your nephrons will usually regulate your thirst in conjunction to the available salts in the body.

Dehydration is not just a lack of salt, it’s an imbalance of salt. Meaning that you can just be low on fluid with too much salt available.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-replenishing-fluids-does-milk-beat-water-202211142849

"Unsurprisingly, the ad is sponsored by the milk industry. And while I’d never heard this claim before, the studies behind the idea aren’t particularly new or compelling. "

Finally, the main benefit of water is that it’s neutral. The reason why people don’t tell you to slam a glass of milk or soda if you’re dehydrated is because it can upset your stomach. When concentrated amounts of sugars or fats enter the intestine the dilution process can go overboard and cause diarrhea, which can dangerously dehydrate you further.

Hydration is more complicated than what you are alluding too. Simply stating everything but piss and liquor is better than water is just ridiculous and misleading. In specific scenarios other liquids may provide some advantages, but it’s highly reductive to make that claim so broadly. Especially considering it requires you to separate hydration from kidney health, you know the things that control your thirst in the first place.

You know what’s better than water when you need water? Nearly everything that isn’t alcohol or literal piss.

I mean it really depends on the person and their current condition. The article you linked kinda has an abstract definition of hydration that doesn’t take into account things normally associated with dehydration.

If you are working hard outside and are mildly dehydrated I wouldn’t recommend slamming down a sugary soda with caffeine. Excessive sugar is diluted in the intestines which can cause further dehydration, and caffeine is a diuretic.

Normally this wouldn’t really matter, but if you’re already dehydrated it can make the situation worse.

Water is great, it may not be the most effective hydrator in the world as it doesn’t have the electrolytes and sugars that something like Gatorade has. However, it’s the best thing for your overall kidney and liver health which is what really matters. Most Americans already have an excess of salt, fat, and sugar in their diets, so even after working outside and sweating your ass off you are probably better off just having some water.

I recently got to use a pole drivers powered by a little 2 stroke motor. It took like 5 sec to sink a tpost down 3 feet. It was so easy and quick that it was kinda upsetting, makes using the old pole drivers feel like you’re a monkey banging on rocks.

saying that lower stage communism as marx called it or socialism as we call it today wasnt real communism is meaningless, and at best petty.

The problem is that the Soviet Union couldn’t even be correctly defined in Marxist terms to be socialist. Socialism according to Marx was a lower form of communism, one described as a transition from democratic capitalism to communism. The Soviets did not transition from a democratic state to communism, there were no valid democratic election from 38’-89’.

what was said when they said it wasnt real communism was that it wasnt led by communist and that it did not adhere to communist ideals and goals which it did.

I mean I still think there’s room for debate depending on who you’re talking about. I tend to think that the most simple definitional test whether or not you are adhering to communist ideology is to examine how the means of production is being managed.

Has the state expanded the means of control over the production to the workers in an equitable manor? Is the equity created by the workers being shared to the entire population of workers? By what means do workers negotiate their control over the means of production?

My arguments against Soviet communism is that workers had no meaningful control over the means of production. Groups of workers had no real access to influence the government such as voting as Marx described. The equity created by the workers was not shared equitably throughout the Union, with non ethnic Russians generally acting as a resource to be extracted from.

u would have to be some kind of alien lizard to not understand the context here which is why i know u are arguing in bad faith.

I think the misunderstanding comes from the fact that when Marx was dreaming of a communist nation, he was not thinking it was going to start in Russia. It was an absolute shock when the 1rst country to commit to communism was autocratic Russia instead of Democratic Germany. Meaning a lot of Marxist writing isn’t really applicable to the Soviet State, Marx didn’t think about revolution occuring in a authoritarian state.

also some idiot lib going around saying that the gdr wasnt real communism because their ancestors had a bad experience with that system (or more likely they were landlords or capitalist and go what they deserved)

Or, they were one of the tens of thousands of leftist that were purged by Beria or Stalin. Pretending that the Soviets only killed landlords is not only academically dishonest, it’s harmful to future leftist endeavors. Self criticism is essential to eliminating internal contradictions from arising within the state.

it WAS real communism

I mean, it wasn’t, at least not according to the actual people who ran those governments. The USSR and the CCP were/are revolutionary governments, real communism happens when/if the revolutionary governments succeeds and transitions the means of control back to the proletariat.

and ur grandparents probably deserved it.

Really working hard to build those bridges of mutual respect and cooperation I see. This is one of the key reasons the USSR imploded in the first place.

The expansion of Soviet influence happened under the influence of Russian chauvinism, a major contradiction with the more successful maoist ideology today. Instead of allowing communism to be shaped by individual ethnicities or nations they did their best to russify or simply purge the base of power in the country, bolshevists or not.

Stalin and Beria did a whole bunch of purging of leftist to secure their control over the party. If you actually think everyone the Soviets killed deserved it, please go read about the Makhnovist, the Mensheviks, the Georgian bolshevist, hell go read what the Soviets did to the original leftist leader in North Korea.

difference is under capitalism it is constant under socialism it is rare.

Unfortunately that’s just not true. Revolutions are highly hierarchical due to their inherent need to react to militant reactionaries. As they begin to solidify their revolution and take over the responsibilities of the state, this hierarchy gets transferred from the the state.

Authoritarian governments are highly efficient, but are extremely hard to get away from once established. Often times the militant leader of the revolution is not the guy you want to be in complete control of the state after establishing a revolutionary government.

Mao was decent enough to accept this after the failure of the cultural revolution, Stalin on the other hand…

When my dad was stationed at White Sands our neighbor in Alamogordo was a local who grew up in the area north of Tularosa. He saw Trinity go off as a teen working on his family’s property.

He said he didn’t see the initial blast, every thing just turned black and white and then a moment later he was knocked to the ground. Said he thought the world was ending, and he was making himself ready for the rapture.

He was really pissed when the government told everyone it was just a planned demolition of ammo. Saying even a stupid kid of a dirt farmer knew explosives didn’t do that.

That study’s been going around for years in the media, but mainly because it’s sensational. If you actually read the article, I’d hardly say it’s very convincing, or very accurate. Also, this.

Existing estimates of mortality from cat predation are speculative and not based on scientific data13,14,15,16 or, at best, are based on extrapolation of results from a single study18. In addition, no large-scale mortality estimates exist for mammals, which form a substantial component of cat diets.

Really makes you think just how culturally biased wikipedia can be. Any other culture outside of Europe has a crazy story about monks slaying dragons, and wiki will pretext the story as mythology, or religious allegory. This article seems to adopt the position that France once had a Dragon problem…

Sounds like your typical engineer. I passed fluid dynamics, I deserve to look at the big ball of plasma.

My eyes haven’t hurt this bad since studying for differential equations theory… Have I told you I’m an engineer?

I’ve never personally heard the dark forest scenario as requiring ftl tech,

FTL is the only thing that makes it applicable to game theory. If there is no import to respond instantly, then there is no imperative to respond.

The query is dependent on the hypothetical that the instant someone spots you in the dark Forrest they have an option of removing you from the game unless you remove them first.

making that a requirement seems to make the entire premise moot as it requires throwing a pretty fundamental part of physics out to even contemplate.

So does going to war with an alien race, or even finding another sentient race? How are you supposing these aliens are finding every sentient race in the galaxy if they can’t push a search signal faster than an electron? It would take thousands of years for a signal to travel to the closest potential suitable planet, let alone every suitable planet.

The theory itself requires a suspense in disbelief, as do any that pertain to encounters of the third kind. I would say that the limitations in physics that prevent the possibility of FTL are of the same order and magnitude that prevent us from contacting aliens.

was presuming that nobody has any ftl tech, given that it seems to violate the laws of physics for such a technology to exist

But the entire premise of the Dark Forrest theory is dependent on FTL. It is what gives the participants in the theory the motivation to respond instantly.

And you can look virtually everywhere, in the galaxy at least, with the right technology

This notion is just as fantastic as the idea of FTL. Even if we’re to accept that flt is theoretically possible, the machines building machines senario you spoke of would be moot. If these machines were to traveled a significant enough distance, by the time they or their signal returned it would be hundreds of if not thousands of years later.

There is no way to observe the rest of the galaxy along the same access of time we currently observe. Even if you had the capability of finding another society so far away, it wouldn’t really mean much, the light or energy you used to observe them is likely hundreds of not thousands of years old. Meaning the image or information it contains is by default “out of date”.

Fortunately for us, this one isn’t too likely, because realistically, an alien civilization capable of travelling the relevant distance and destroying another civilization isn’t something that can be hidden from.

I mean its entirely dependent on whatever theoretical sci-fi gimmick utilized to close that gap. Are we betting on FTL, near the speed of light, or the left field entry … intra dimensional travel?

The dark Forrest theory is mostly dependent on FTL, where the ability to destroy a planet is on par with the discovery of the planet. Meaning that it’s not so much a seek and destroy scenario, but more like two scared drunks stumbling in the dark with loaded shot guns.

They should be able, fairly easily, to examine every planet in the galaxy and see which ones have life on them, and wipe it out before any civilization ever arises at all.

Again, this theory isn’t supposing that there is a omnipresent alien race, but that all species are searching in the dark with a flashlight. Just because you have the ability to look everywhere, doesn’t mean that you can look everywhere at once, and the universe is infinite.

The fact that we exist at all necessarily implies that nobody in this galaxy has been committed to going this, at least for the past billion years or so.

Again, this presumes that just because you have FTL tech means you have limitless resource and man power. When in reality the theory presupposes that FTL increases resource competition, not diminishes it.

Slavery and wage slavery is happening across the globe, but companies with thin margins don’t resort to it any more than companies with huge margins (e.g. Nike). If anything, monopolistic corporations have much more power to use and enforce slave labor than the small and medium-sized factories selling at razor thin margins on Temu.

That’s most likely not the case. Larger corporations require more workforce stability and require better trained labour to maintain quality control. These needs are better fulfilled by factories who actually hire their labourers instead of hiring temps and auxiliary workers who make considerably less.

Factories that are supplying corporations like temu can only maintain a profit margin if they rely on the cheaper auxiliary labour. Often times hiring and firing them for specific manufacturing quotas. This is one of the reasons temu doesn’t have any consistency in quality.

Things sold in the US are way overpriced. Temu is actually pretty normally priced if you consider the average cost of living in the countries it ships to.

If anything they are extremely underpriced, especially when you equate the cost of shipping. The cost of a lot of items on temu are significantly lower than the production cost. As you said it’s rare to have a markup that exceeds 50% and a lot of stuff on temu is significantly cheaper than that.

I believe temu operates as a way to minimize the excess of surplus production. Basically in economics it’s always hard to balance the size of your labour force to meet the exact level of consumer demand.

Demand could be growing, so we built a new factory. Great, we are now employing more workers and have the ability to supply the increased demand. And then something like COVID happens, exports stop, demand halts, and now you have a factory with no work.

In the west, it’s tough shit, pack it up, go home. However, in China local governments can supply local businesses with loans, hoping that demand returns and they can eventually turn a profit. So they pay the factories to produce anyways, well what do they produce if there is no actual demand for export. Well anything, it doesn’t matter, it’s just about maintaining productivity levels. Just throw the shit in the warehouse and we’ll figure out what to do with it later…enter temu.

If you buy it from somewhere else, it’s still coming from a factory in China. May as well cut out the middleman.

But you aren’t buying from the factory, you’re buying from temu, the middle man.

Temu, but economically their prices make sense.

Only if you equate the use of cheap auxiliary labour, the sky rocketing debt of local Chinese governments, and the subsidization of global shipping offered by the Chinese fed.

The problem with this version of robbing Peter to pay Paul is that there isn’t actually any profit imported into the country. The loans and subsidies offered by their government were implemented to intice an actual return, where the Fed supports the local government, who support the company, who use the profit to support the workers. When there is no profit, the system is just aquiring debt.

I did know people like this growing up, but they were always driving fucked up one way or another.

It’s not really an adequate comparison. I work in orthopedics and rehabilitation, and modern people do indeed acquire specific chronic orthopedic ailments based on their occupation.

Most of these injuries are acquired from jobs where you repeat specific motions all day. It doesn’t really mean you’ve done hard labour, more that you’ve over used specific muscle groups and joints.

Btw I do agree with your general rebuttal, that any work back then was much more labour intensive. I just don’t know if that particular anthropological fact lends much weight to your argument.

You’d probably get better information examining the average age of the working male. From anecdotal experience, hard labour is a young mans game. I work in oil country, and I don’t ever have any old rough necks as patients. At least not one’s whole are still working.