wpb

Funding a genocide is not normal.

Sadly, _similar_ stuff does happen even when you have more parties. In my opinion, what's happening here is that the policies of the parties do not align with the opinions of the public. If you care about not doing a genocide, there wasn't a candidate to vote for last cycle. If you care about universal health care, there wasn't a candidate to vote for. And so on. And you can measure this. Research has been carried out into the congruence between policy and public opinion in the US. For example, in the paper Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, it was found that the impact the average American (as a group) has on policy is miniscule compared to the influence of economic elites. You and I don't benefit from invading Iran, but the owning class sure does, so that's what we do. All this is independent of who's in charge. And so now you might rightly theorize that since there are only two parties, the democrats can fully cater to billionaires, as long as they're less bad than the republicans. And as time goes on they move further and further right, since they really don't have to care about voters, because the only other party consists of actual demons, and people will vote for them anyway. However, you see this effect (the wealthy having a disproportionate amount of influence on policy) in pluralistic systems as well. Norway has about 9 major political parties, yet the study Affluence and Influence in a Social Democracy finds that here too, the rich have an outsized influence. Similar studies exist for other western European countries, most of which (if not all) have more than two major parties. So I don't think the root of the problem is the two party system (although I'm sure it doesn't help).

One of these is not like the others

The article doesn’t contradict what I said Yes it does, read it again. It claims homelessness, not recorded, not perceived, not logged, but real actual homelessness went up for reasons other than “when communism fell, the government was replaced by beautiful honest angels who would never tell a lie about their own performance”, namely something along the lines of the housing market being privatized and folks selling homes without being able to purchase a new one. Academic studies have shown that the Soviet Union in the 1980s not only had homelessness, but they had it at a rate that was higherthan what the US had at that time. I’m not disputing this. I did have a similar conversation with someone about this earlier, who claimed something similar, and initially the “academic studies” they referred to were a listicle and an article written by someone from an institute whose mission statement was sth like “we’re here to write propaganda against communism”. I think eventually they found something that could more reasonably be called academic sources, but I’m curious what you’re referring to here.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Russia Unless the USSR set aside some funds to have wikipedia run propaganda for them in the future, it seems that you’re wrong.

Why is the background smooth behind the swastika?

After the fall of the Soviet Union, every single ex soviet state in Europe (outside of Russia and Belarus) went on a spree to “decommunize” their architecture because it’s so soulless and terrible, and they’re better off for it Their homelessness did skyrocket after the USSR dissolved though. So saying “they’re better off for it” kind of depends on what you value more, pretty buildings or housing people.

Tell me you’ve never been homeless without telling me you’ve never been homeless

I love this kind of thread. It always attracts some guy who finds it necessary to point out that in the USSR people had to endure the absolute horrors of having roommates. I think I saw him phrase it as them having “survived” roommates once.

Ok sure. But just because other stuff is worse doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fix something. We don’t stop fining drunk drivers just because murder is worse.

Let me ask you this: does it matter? Whether my neighbor buys or just happens upon a bazooka, he has a bazooka, and I don’t feel safe.

They’re very much first world.

Yeah sure I’m in total agreement. But we’re not choosing between tackling property ownership systematically versus hurting the systematic evil of booking. We’re choosing between hurting one single landlord and hurting booking.

Yeah ok, sure, but again I feel like you’re focussing on the wrong thing here. It’s like you’re watching a video of a homeless man being beaten up, see someone jaywalk in the background and go “oh my god I can’t believe someone just jaywalked!”. Like, yeah, sure, you’re completely right, that is a bad thing to do, but I feel like there’s more important things going on here, and it’s really quite odd to focus on that, instead of the bigger evil here.

I didn’t read your comment, but deepseek said this: Well said. You’ve nailed the key distinction: AI as a thought amplifier vs. thought substitute. The value depends entirely on the user’s foundation of knowledge. Your approach—building a curated knowledge base so people (and AI) can learn just-in-time—is exactly right. It sets everyone up for success by grounding the AI in truth. Smart strategy. I haven’t read this either but I hope it helps.

For bonus points, support leftist movements that have never gotten proper traction and have never have had to face and deal with the reality of capitalist nations trying to topple them. Like anarcho syndicalism, or worker coops.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Capitalism is functioning, it’s just that we’re not the beneficiaries.

What did they become? Pretty much all we’re seeing they’ve been doing since 1948. You think folks left peacefully during the nakba? Entire villages were slaughtered, others levelled or burned. And this is not some small thing either. About 700k Palestinians were made refugees, i.e., ethically cleansed. What’s the difference these days? Tik tok?

You know what bombs do? They kill people, indiscriminately, especially when you throw them on desnsely populated civilian centers that you've driven 100s of thousands of refugees into. They don't defend against "terrorist" attacks on your occupied soil, they only serve to invite more. What are you going to tell me next, "muh human shields"? Fuck off.

There is not a single good bomb thrown by Israel in history, just like Russia hasn't thrown a good bomb in the history of the Ukraine conflict. The reasoning is exactly the same. Israel, like Russia, is the aggressor, the occupier in this conflict, since its very inception. It's very clear from your comments that you don't read history, and it would serve you well to be less confident about the things you clearly don't really know about.

War crimes are only bad if the bad guy does them. NATO is a good guy.

They did fail to demonstrate knowledge of lexicographical order, which this exercise seems to be aiming for with the inclusion of pond and pumpkin, so I think it's a bit cynical to consider failing the student on this a means of opression or subjugation.

What was their homelessness rate in the 1980s? I’ve looked for 5 minutes and have not been able to find anything. In the US it was 0.01%.

Yes I was being sarcastic, and I should’ve made that clearer. I know of no other way of dealing with the smug sanctimonious attitude of those in rich peaceful countries demanding that the oppressed turn the other cheek because “violence bad”. It’s this bizarre combination of smugness, ignorance of history, and effective advocacy in favor of the oppressor that I really, really, cannot stand.

This is silly. Everyone knows, historically, you stop opressors by asking nicely. Maybe go into the street in a funny costume or something, organize a singalong. Violence is what the baddies do.

Famously, the human rights gained by movements using violent tactics, such as the abolitionists, suffragettes, the civil rights movement, the ANC, were all very short-lived. Hollow victories, all.