FunkyStuff [he/him]

Both can be true though, although the whole idea of a “dictator” as a type of political leader can be more of a hindrance of one’s analysis than a useful category.

The NSDAP also was as American as apple pie in some ways.

Yeah, absolutely. Great at academic stuff, completely useless at a lot of stuff that’s necessary to be practical and productive in most of the real world.

Ah, I understand then. Yeah, I can’t fault you then. Carry on.

I can sympathize with what you’re saying, but I don’t quite understand how Nutomic being wrong about trans people and COVID is completely unacceptable when those are things the vast majority of the world’s population are wrong about, but Rimu gets a pass for believing anti-Chinese propaganda that the vast majority of people aren’t racist enough to even entertain being true. Maybe transphobia and COVID denial makes you unsafe in a way that sinophobia doesn’t, but Lemmy has some of the best established trans and COVID conscious communities on the English internet outside of Reddit, while piefed is actively making it harder to engage with those communities. Is the juice worth the squeeze?

I’m with you on dunking on Nutomic for the transphobia and COVID denial, but if you think Rimu is to his left (especially if you’re citing his refusal to wear a mask as a red line; I admit I don’t know if Rimu is a plague rat, but you’re asking them to be correct about something very few people are correct about) get ready to be disappointed because there’s a high chance every single piece of software you use is written by people who have way worse opinions. And unlike Lemmy, Rimu actually puts their opinions into the code. Unless you know Rimu personally and know that they’re correct about everything…

You’re right, I hadn’t considered that this was part of a strategy like this. I rescind what I said; piefed delenda est.

https://whn.global/yes-we-continue-wearing-masks/

People worldwide largely aren’t taking COVID precautions and that’s exactly the problem. Some people, mostly leftists, have continued to follow the science that says that even if you’re the only person masking up and getting your booster shots every year, you’re reducing the chance that you catch a disease that can permanently disable you and everyone you infect.

Delcy Rodríguez is PSUV and her whole family are ideologically committed Chavistas. As I said, the oil being privatized was something Maduro was already willing to do (and Exxon already had a deal to extract Venezuelan oil, being the only company that was exempt from the sanctions)

But they’re not installing a dictator, that’s why I’m saying the operation didn’t do anything. Trump kidnapped Maduro and changed nothing because the same government is still in place, and Venezuela retains the same stance.

You’re not understanding what I said; Maduro had already made an offer to let US companies do exactly what they’re doing right now. Venezuela’s oil company doesn’t have the capital to fully exploit the country’s reserves so they’ve always been open to working with the US and their oil companies. Maduro also understood that that’s what the US was after and was willing to compromise. So yes, it kinda looks like Venezuela is bending the knee, but they’re not doing anything now that Maduro wasn’t willing to do before.

I think if you roll one of the instances (like yours) that overrides the basic censorship stuff it ain’t so bad. It’s a different UI and I can see why some people would prefer that. I wish it wasn’t developed by a right winger though.

You’re missing the part that the VN gov already was willing to do everything they’re current doing. They were willing to let American companies come in and extract some oil, that was Maduro’s offer.

Sometimes you twist yourself into pretzels trying to find rational explanations for certain things assuming they were done with malice when they were, in fact, just done by stupidity. E.g. Trump’s tariffs and the kidnapping of Maduro. Both actions had very predictable downsides for the US with virtually no upside.

The way for Democrats to “slow Trump’s rollback of abortion rights” would be to stuff SCOTUS with liberal judges. They aren’t gonna do that.

You think the fact that Russia is put under sanctions, barred from participating in international sports and other activities, has their gas lines to the rest of Europe bombed by the US, and is generally treated like they’re Nazi Germany is sensible? In a world where the countries making those decisions turn away when Israel and the US do much worse?

I took a couple down with me!

Probably in a perfect world they all would’ve been sent to the gulags and worked to death in the cold. But what would be materially different about living in that world as opposed to the one where they were forced to do the same thing except it was white collar labor?

I think that the fact that the capitalist world achieved the rapid 20th century development from the plundering of the global south, while the USSR managed comparable growth as they lost 27 million people in the fight against fascism (and were later forced to spend ridiculous amounts of resources developing weapons to maintain MAD against the US) should also count for something. Capitalist development isn’t very impressive in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile (despite the Allende admin), Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, etc. Even with some jumps in life expectancy and literacy rates, uneven capitalist development is undeniable and a much graver problem than its analogue in the former second world.

what