Okay, let’s say you have a fuel injected car, but instead of using the 02 sensor to decide the fuel air mixture, it just squirts the same amount of gas every time.

The hardware might be able to achieve 400 hp, but the software means it only ever achieves 50 hp

It’s like that. The software drives the hardware. It doesn’t matter how good the hardware is, the software is the brain of the operation - if the software doesn’t know how to utilize the hardware properly, you’re going to have piss poor performance

Driver’s? They literally drive the hardware your computer is using

I mean, hopefully to bring perspective, the water wars are happening now. People are fighting corporations who are draining the aquifers for alphalpha and such to send abroad, there are faucets running dry and everything

It’s not going to be mad Max… These problems still exist and are on track, but they way they present themselves is as a slow burning down of the infrastructure that our country is built upon

The people will remain. There will be hard times, we will have to come together to solve problems. We might have to relocate as areas become untenable

There will be unrest and disorder, but not mass murder. We just don’t have it in us without years of indoctrination and drug use

Booo

How does it break down? It seems like it would work normally, if a little strangely

They actually turn around and will slash the cost for the uninsured the second you dispute it. They don’t actually expect people to pay that much

It’s a weird dance with insurance companies, they say it’s costs 20k and then insurance says “ok, I’ll pay 7k” and you pay 5k

An uninsured person might get away with paying even less than $5k when it’s all said and done. It’s not a real healthcare system

You’re just doing a whataboutism

This is the wrong place to put in work, we’re already working over here and you’re not helping.

Go find somewhere people aren’t already talking about a genocide, go build unrelated threads about it. Go find someone talking about France

You’re acting like that Republicans right now… No, we don’t want to protect Bill Clinton from the Epstein files, stop bringing him up. We’re talking about Trump right now

No, you fucking organize. Do you think a platform comes for free?

You have to work for it. If you actually cared for the cause, and weren’t bullshitting, you’d put in the work

I was just giving them enough rope to hang themselves with honestly

My positions are real… Cultural genocide is bad, and we should stop it from happening if we can

Is the thing in France happening? Probably not, but if it was I’d want it to stop

That’s the benefit of having real beliefs. When they start dancing around and mudding the waters, you can ignore all that and assert your beliefs proudly

Unfortunately, it also works if you believe in bad things, but luckily tankies (can’t believe they’re self admitted, that’s so rare) have to pretend they believe in good things

No, that’s whataboutism.

When we’re talking about China, I don’t need info on the horrors America has inflicted on the world. Just like when I talk about America’s past, I don’t compare it to Canadian history

Advocate for good things and against bad things. Don’t interrupt people already doing that

I think you just don’t know the difference between what imperialism was like post WW2 and what it looks like today

It is imperialism when you economically colonize other states. It’s not necessarily evil, but you can’t deny the power dynamics that are at play

And public ownership is absolutely something that can and does exist under capitalism. In fact, the US would barely have to make any legal changes at all to do what they do… We’re just allergic to actually doing it

You can stop jumping through hoops if you just look at their system instead of trying to reconcile their word with direct observation

Why would you ever listen to politicians? The CCP lies constantly, obviously, they’re a government

If not imperialist, why imperialism shaped? I don’t care if their ideology is different, they’re doing exactly the same thing! Belts and roads are literally loans and investments, there is nothing you can say that changes that fact

Private ownership? That doesn’t explain away anything!

There are no billionaires without mass explotation. Period.

You’re just describing a flavor of capitalism. China has a system of controlled capitalism. It’s a different flavor, it seems like it’s a better flavor that I’d like to try, but it’s still capitalism

You’re jumping through some crazy hoops there when it’s just not that complicated.

Yes, they have largely stopped doing it, which is good.

No, it’s not good that it’s happening somewhere else. I haven’t heard about that at all. Maybe we should make it an issue so they stop too???

This is not a zero sum game. I don’t care what France is doing when I’m talking about China or vice versa, I just want less bad things in the world

I’m saying it’s religion because how in the world can there be billionaires in the system you’re describing??? To hold those concepts together requires nothing short of belief

I don’t need to read your book list. Smart people can trick themselves into the most wild of mental gymnastics, there is no possible justification for billionaires. At best your book is an explanation of how China has failed to live up to their stated beliefs

Wise people recognize the truth when they see it. Billionaires come from mass exploitation, and only from mass exploitation. There’s simply no other way.

Now, we could talk about the explotation, what China does better than the West and such, but only if you can set down your beliefs about China

I could very easily have that conversation, because I haven’t put China, the US, or any country on a pedestal

They are real places with real people and real problems to me. I can look at them clearly and with minimal bias, because I know I will find humans there if I zoom in, with all the same human problems, but maybe better or worse solutions that I could learn from

And that sounds like religion to me

How many billionaires does China have? The answer would be zero if what you say is true

But it’s not.

I see China clearly. I don’t like their authoritarianism, but at least they’re nation building. They’re a very big county, with lots of problems, but they are at least attempting to address them

I can see both what they do well and what they do poorly. My number one take away from them is how important and achievable it is to reign in corporations

No, imperialism isn’t bad vibes. It’s when you build a factory in Africa, but the owners of the company are a Chinese investment group. It’s where the value doesn’t flow around the community, it’s where it gets sucked up and extracted

And it’s good for a while - the workers are making bank… Until their economy starts to catch up

Then you have an industrialized country, but half of the profits go to China, or pays the interest on debts to China

Belts and roads is China first. It’s Chinese economic imperialism. It’s the same forces, they want to offshore manufacturing and create beneficial trading partners. And they’re not trying to lose money doing it, they’re trying to hand out loans and make investments

It’s the same forces. It’s just a kinder approach to the process, but then everyone does it that way now

Your glasses are broken. Your analytical lens is making you fail to see the world clearly

No, I’m saying your glasses are broken. They’re not helping you see more clearly, they’re blurring reality

That’s why I called it a weird religion.

Imperialism isn’t some shadowy force. It’s just a bad thing being done to others out in the open. On its face, it’s unfair. You don’t have to prepare people to understand why it’s unfair, they just have to believe you when you point at it

Do you think China doesn’t do imperialism? Do you think the USSR was being benevolent when it did the same thing, just a little more fairly and a better message?

If you can understand these examples of imperialism, I’m willing to take back my claim that your glasses are broken

I bet I can describe the mechanisms of imperialism better than you, because I’m not weighed down by a weird religion

I just witnessed something strange while doing a job in the “global south”, and started reading. And kept reading. There was no analytical lens required. It’s all pretty naked and unapologetic

After WW2 the US came in with warships and made deals at gunpoint, but while also “offering” industrialization. Today, the IMF and the world Bank keep nations on debt treadmills to force austerity under threat of being removed from the global trade network, as their natural resources are drained away under those deals

It’s not complex. No further reading required to understand, further reading will just expand on that short paragraph I just wrote. No special analytical lens required to view it, it’s just the uncomfortable truth. It just gets worse as you dig into it

Yeah, I think I can just say yes

You can have causes. You can talk about politics

But if you’re not occasionally making a joke or responding to the puppy girls, why are you actually here?

The experience is very different. It’s like going to the club with a group of people

You’re going to have a lot more positive interactions if you choose wisely, and a lot more negative ones if you don’t. You’re still going to the same place, with all the same people, but it’ll hit different