SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]

I thought Hexbear users didn’t assume gender.

apologies, we have pronoun tags on Hexbear so that we don’t have to assume, we can just know.

democracy is when most of your country disapproves of their elected representatives and authoritarianism is when most of your country approves of their elected representatives and yes, there are in fact elections in China and even (hold on to your hat for this one) North Korea!

Is democracy is the mere condition of being able to choose from two awful choices, or is it instead the condition of having a competent government of which most of the population approves of?

Could you see how it would be incredibly easy to create an authoritarian government if you decided to have effectively the same party swap power every couple terms, so long as you defined “democracy” as “the ability to vote for what party rules over your state”? Could you see how it would be much more difficult to fulfil the latter definition without actually addressing the concerns of the populace, which bad authoritarian states would have a hard time doing?

“authoritarianism” is the condition of one person, or group of people, having coercive or even violent power over another. all governments are authoritarian, obviously, and most are very authoritarian. Lenin’s definition of the state as the means for the outnumbered class (the rich, the elite, the bourgeoisie, whatever) to exert control over the working class is the most sensible and applicable definition I’ve ever found, and by that definition, and by the fact that people all around the world have to labor for the rich regularly to not starve or become homeless, all countries are generally pretty comparable in “authoritarian-ness”, making it an awful way of defining countries at all.

I really don’t think you guys are that out of pocket

Thank you. Most of us are pretty chilled out back on Hexbear, I spend my time trawling through news articles and trying to understand shit and many of us do the same. But as we are so surrounded by liberal talking points and views (in real life, with our families and friends, at work, or online on reddit, youtube, etc etc) that tend to be the most infuriating combination of a) utterly smug, b) utterly unquestioned, and c) utterly incorrect, and our origins were battling liberals on Reddit until we were banned, we tend to get a little frenzied when somebody comes along with a point we disagree with. Given that many - maybe even almost all - of us used to be liberals that got bullied and dunked on by leftists on that subreddit or on Hexbear, we generally believe in the power of insulting+educating (insulducating?) people into submission.

Every single one of us genuinely wants to create a better world, free of poverty, where everybody has a home and food and healthcare, without that requiring exploitation of people at home or abroad, for every demographic (except capitalists and fascists, but nobody is born either of those things). So our anger also comes from the frustration about how far away from these things and how liberals and liberterians and conservatives are so maddeningly dismissive of those things like “Yeah, that would be nice, but there’s a little thing called ECONOMICS” (as if many of us haven’t read many books on economics and history from experts old and new) or are like “That can be achieved with the profit motive and if people just worked a little harder!” and are so hyperfocussed on individualistic solutions rather than trying to implement systemic change.

And also American propaganda about other countries. Which I and others are especially attuned to due our aforementioned time spent going through western media in the news megathreads.

name your favourite anti-authoritarian system. you wanna have a revolution to create it? whoopsie doopsie, you’re literally forcing people (maybe at gunpoint!!!) to do something that they don’t want to do, you fucking authoritarian tankie monster. next you’ll be saying you want to get rid of corporations (extremely authoritarian over those business owners)

bro the United States has the largest prison population in the world and regularly overthrows countries they don’t like, the US is by far the most authoritarian country in the world by any sensible definition

NATO moves towards Russia for 30 years in an attempt to finally bring down their hated enemy for good, without the democratic input of the people inside those countries, marching their troops and equipment forward and building military bases as they go: this is not aggression

Russia takes a stand at basically the last possible moment in almost the last possible country: WE MUST TAKE HELP UKRAINE DEFEND ITSELF FROM AGGRESSION

it’s particularly funny because when this happened to NATO with the Soviets marching westwards, the threat of them taking them rest of Europe spurred massive amounts of funding from America to Europe and the creation of Gladio and propaganda campaigns about the Soviets and all this is seen as totally justified, meanwhile Russia watches NATO do what NATO feared the USSR would do to them and essentially decided to let it happen without the threat of conventional or nuclear war until it reached a breaking point in 2022

Dig deeper, though, and you find that America’s reliance on China remains intact. America may be redirecting its demand from China to other countries. But production in those places now relies more on Chinese inputs than ever. As South-East Asia’s exports to America have risen, for instance, its imports of intermediate inputs from China have exploded. China’s exports of car parts to Mexico, another country that has benefited from American de-risking, have doubled over the past five years. Research published by the imf finds that even in advanced-manufacturing sectors, where America is keenest to shift away from China, the countries that have made most inroads into the American market are those with the closest industrial links to China. Supply chains have become more complex, and trade has become more expensive. But China’s dominance is undiminished.

What is going on? In the most egregious cases, Chinese goods are simply being repackaged and sent via third countries to America. At the end of 2022, America’s Department of Commerce found that four major solar suppliers based in South-East Asia were doing such minor processing of otherwise Chinese products that they were, in effect, circumventing tariffs on Chinese goods. In other areas, such as rare-earth metals, China continues to provide inputs that are hard to replace.

More often, though, the mechanism is benign. Free markets are simply adapting to find the cheapest way to supply goods to consumers. And in many cases China, with its vast workforce and efficient logistics, remains the cheapest supplier. America’s new rules have the power to redirect its own trade with China. But they cannot rid the entire supply chain of Chinese influence.

Everybody who is not completely incompetent could see that this was going to happen from the beginning. China makes the products. America needs the products. Unless and until America re-constructs the entire manufacturing base of China somewhere, whether that’s spread out across their (ever-weakening) allies or inside America, Chinese products are going to find their way to America. Biden and his administration cannot cross their arms in a huff and go “Well, now that we’ve cut our ties with China, we are patiently waiting for that good ol’ free market to supply us the things that we need! Just, uh… waiting…” and then be surprised when countries seek to fill that gap by simply buying from China and then re-exporting to America. This isn’t even economics 101, it’s so basic, it’s more like “recognizing that matter-energy cannot be created nor destroyed”.

Much of the decoupling, then, is phoney. Worse, from Mr Biden’s perspective, his approach is also deepening the economic links between China and other exporting countries. In so doing, it perversely pits their interests against America’s. Even where governments are worried about the growing assertiveness of China, their commercial relationships with the biggest economy in Asia are deepening. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a trade deal signed in November 2020 by many South-East Asian countries and China, creates a sort of single market in precisely the intermediate goods in which trade has boomed in recent years.

For many poorer countries, receiving Chinese investment and intermediate goods and exporting finished products to America is a source of jobs and prosperity. America’s reluctance to support new trade agreements is one reason why they sometimes see it as an unreliable partner. If asked to choose between China and America, they might not side with Uncle Sam.

It’s the contradictions of capitalism! Honestly, we really should be glad that these people don’t study Marxism, or maybe they’d have a competent idea for once in their lives.

Complaints about authoritarianism honestly feel so disconnected to actual on-the-ground problems. I do not understand how people have the ability to even begin to care about how authoritarian something is as conditions get more and more desperate.

“yo, can I have a living wage to support myself?” no, because doing so would be imposing rules on business owners and that’s authoritarian

“can I at least have inexpensive or free healthcare so I can labor for you more effectively then?” no, because doing so would force insurance companies to make less money and that’s authoritarian

“fine, but please, let’s at least sort out the environment so humanity and massive numbers of species don’t die out” sorry, but we would need to reduce the size of the fossil fuel industry and doing that is government overreach and authoritarian, also we could take solar panels from China but they’re authoritarian

it’s really just the ultimate cudgel. you can use it against literally any idea that anybody proposes that require even the slightest amount of coercion or force, regardless of how good or bad or necessary it actually is. it’s become totally meaningless.

this is what is meant by “permanent revolution” I believe

“the last time I looked at China’s economy was in 2005, but I reckon nothing much has changed there since then. hasn’t changed much since then in the West, so…”

This is just a silly argument. We’re already polluting those countries anyway with the current fossil fuel regime. We’re already putting massive quarries for the minerals currently needed for energy generation and transmission there (coal, copper, gold, etc). We’re already prospecting those countries for oil and gas. We’re already chopping down rainforests to get to all these resources, not to mention to clear land for cattle grazing for the titanic meat industry.

Mining has to be done somewhere to create a decent standard of living (though Western lifestyles require exponentially more resources than those elsewhere so we can make improvements on the demand side of things). What isn’t set in stone in that the extraction of resources has to be exploitative for the people living in those countries, nor that it has to be excessively environmentally damaging. Which it currently, absolutely is, because the capitalist profit motive dictates it to be so.

Which referendums are you referring to and does any country besides Russia or North Korea accept the results?

literally the consent “isn’t there somebody you forgot to ask?” meme but with America

but this is also a very funny way of imagining how self-determination and independence movements work a lot of the time. Imagine a world where a newfound country breaks free from an existing one and then that newfound country sees that 90% of the UN, including the country they just broke free from, doesn’t recognize them for doing that and they’re just like “Well, shucks. I guess we’re going back and re-joining the country again, because these people aren’t ready to accept us yet!”

the unspoken (hell, sometimes spoken) assumption is that China would be doing a lot better with a Western-style neoliberal economy, which is an extremely funny assertion when all these economies are doing even worse than China is

there’s a manufacturing and possibly soon-to-be services recession everywhere. hyperfocussing on China while everybody else metaphorically (and literally) burns around them is just silly.

and, as others have said, the US is literally declaring economic war against China! again, it’s Schrodinger’s Sanctions! They both exist and are good, but also aren’t doing anything and it’s all that country’s fault! “Ooo, Russia is experiencing a fall in GDP in 2022, this proves that Putin’s war machine isn’t sustaina–” no, it proves that you’ve put sanctions on them! “Aha, Cuba and Venezuela’s economies are collapsing and they can’t afford enough basic necessities, this just shows how socialism is–” No, it proves that the sanctions that you actively boast about putting on them are working! “See, China’s economy is now not doing so hot (defined as “only” growing by like 5-6% or whatever), this is really a lesson in how Marxist econo–” Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you’re putting sanctions on their industries instead, the thing you, again, boast about doing?

“See, this patient is blacking out when we put pressure on his carotid artery, this shows how their vascular system is simply inferior to our own (which isn’t being actively strangled)!”

by the International Court of Good Guys, which will order Russia to totally rebuild Ukraine and give back Crimea and all the rest, and order the United States and NATO to give a heartfelt apology to the people of the countries they’ve invaded and whose governments they’ve overthrown (they won’t do this)

One Ukrainian BioTexCom surrogate mother carrying a child for an American couple similarly told El Pais that she decided to sell her womb due to financial strain. “I grew up without a home. It’s important for me to have an apartment of my own. [Surrogacy] is the only way I can do that.”

BioTexCom’s Medical Director, Ihor Pechenoha, openly admitted to the Spanish investigative magazine La Marea that his company targets women from poor areas, and that “all those who work as surrogate mothers do so out of financial hardship.”

“We are looking for women in the former Soviet republics because, logically, [the women] have to be from poorer places than our clients,” Pechenoha explained. Ultimately, he added, “I have not met a single woman with a good economic situation who has decided to go through this process out of kindness, because she thinks she has enough children and wants to help someone else who wants them.”

“They do it because they need that money to buy a house, for the education of their children,” Pechenoh continued, concluding: “if you have a good life in Europe, you’re not going to do it.”

A third Ukrainian woman who sold her womb to foreigners confirmed Pechenoh’s comments in an interview with The Guardian, explaining, “the only reason why I agreed to do this is just for the financial benefits.”

“Plus, since my husband left for the frontline, I need a way to support my other four children,” she added.

“Surrogate mothers, they’re a flow of incubators,” yet another one of BioTexCom’s surrogates explained in 2019. “They don’t treat you as a human being.”

really, this is the libertarian dream

Kautsky, just so Lenin would think I was cool

the problem isn’t necessarily pointing out the problems with any particular country, that can be done as a legitimate discussion, what gets really fucking annoying is when people only talk about the problems with a certain country and then when questioned, are like “Oh, no! We also hate it when America does this thing! We’re just talking about X country right now!” when that’s clearly false. like, you say “Fuck China for having mass surveillance” on reddit and you get 100k upvotes, 20 platinum awards and some dude’s firstborn son, whereas if you say “Fuck America for having mass surveillance” you’ll get “Hm, well, you see, this is a complicated topic, because on the one hand…” or even just “Yeah, but it’s nothing compared to China though!”

the problem is also when what you’re talking about is necessarily a comparison because no action exists in a vacuum free of context. if I say “The US is an awful, imperialist country that has invaded all these nations, and NATO has also invaded and destroyed nations, and we should not support them even if Russia is doing a bad thing because Russia’s death toll is so much lower than the West’s” then all I would get on most lib platforms is “That history doesn’t matter! What matters is the here and now, when Russia is doing a bad thing and NATO currently, at this precise moment in time, is not! Bad things are bad things! You can’t wave them away through context!”

but the question isn’t “Is Russia doing a bad thing”, I don’t think anybody would deny except the most fervent Russian nationalist that Russia has done at least some bad things in Ukraine, the question is “Who should we support in this war” and so the fact that NATO and the US has killed tens of millions of people within the lifetime of the current president and doomed hundreds of millions more to backbreaking labor in mines and plantations and sweatshops, and Russia, well, hasn’t, is a perfectly pertinent point to make when asking who to support. This is also why liberals are so utterly gobsmacked when third-world countries don’t come out against Russia, because they have been on the receiving end of this campaign of carnage that the US has wrought around the world and so, logically, think Russia is the lesser of two evils. can’t they see that Russia is evil! can’t they see that Putler is the devil doing a genocide!? they must be brainwashed by Russian disinformation propaganda! we must up our efforts to spread Correct Information!

people get arrested during strikes and protests all the time in America. of course, you would justify it as “actually they were breaking Clause 8 of Section 9A so it was against the law and they shouldn’t have done it!” without questioning if that law might possibly have been drawn up specifically to punish those people because the government couldn’t do it legally before. no, all laws in America come straight out of the Founding Father’s dick as a glorious bukkake for us all to share freely, while in tyrannical states like Russia and China, all laws are to be questioned and/or drawn up by the supreme ruler himself because he was really extra totalitarian that day

never try idealism kids, it turns you into this

Again, purposely digging up confidential information and then exposing it is illegal.

Going up to Snowden and saying “Erm, sir, you might have told us that the American government is spying on us every moment of our lives, but, erm, actshually, doing that was illegal, so unfortunately, sir, you are not epic and you don’t deserve freedom of speech protections”

what an absolute fucking dweeb, holy shit

I will go tell Putin to make it “confidential information” that he’s a bad person, then maybe you’ll shut the fuck up for a single moment of your life because a bootlicker like you will be forced to obey it if you ever go there

that’s impossible, the entire Russian army has been destroyed a hundred times now by Ukraine, over 15 million Russian troops have been killed last time I checked, there are no snipers left

the Zaporozhye front is just the Ukrainians doing a giant war re-enactment of what would have happened if there were any Russians left alive, but due to the 1:984219 casualty ratio, there aren’t any Russians left

I’d love to see how you people will react when Mexico joins BRICS and the US invades it.

I cannot fucking wait for China and Russia to do freedom of navigation exercises between Cuba and Florida like how the US does with Taiwan and China and for Americans to just fucking LOSE it. Holy shit, it’ll be so funny. “No, this isn’t the same because China is evil and we’re the good guys!”