That’s true lol

History is exactly why I’m skeptical.

The USA is the world’s sole superpower and this is in their area of influence. It’s always about them when they get involved (as they have in 2002, 2013, 2017, and 2019, etc.).

It’s not really democracies vs dictators, it’s countries in the US’s sphere vs countries not in the US’s sphere. It becomes more obvious and easy to see then. The OAS has been a puppet of US interests since the beginning (there’s a reason they didn’t let Cuba in). It literally started by a pledge to fight communism in the western hemisphere. Basically, it’s the US empire and it’s puppets and allies vs a rising new order of old colonized and sanctioned countries, which admittedly looks scary, but hopefully will one day lead to a multipolar world where people can deal with their own local issues without worry of western interference (which has almost always been net bad for the people of those countries in the global south Asia, Africa, and South America).

Plenty of Democratic administrations have done coups and wars all over the world. It’s just a US empire policy, no matter who is President, mostly because of capitalism. Sure, conservatives are usually worse about it, but Democrats do it, too. Biden is supporting a genocide in Israel. McKinley fought the Philippines, Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish American, JFK invaded Cuba and tried to coup it, Truman led the war in Korea and established a US puppet dictatorship in n the south for, JFK and LBJ were also involved in Vietnam, etc.

Not in the same period of time for the same level of development. And when it did, they accomplished it mostly through colonies and 1800’s imperialism.

I know someone in the US who is adamant Biden cheated, too. That’s not really evidence.

You do, but you don’t see it as that because the millions dying are in the Middle-East where you’re getting your oil, Africa where you get your diamonds and coffee, South America where you get your minerals and oil, and Asia where they’re assembling your manufacturing. And it took wars and imperialism and installed authoritarian puppet regimes to extract the wealth from all those places. Not to mention what do you think the monarchies of World War I and fascist regimes of World War 2 did? Give out puppies?

You guys are better than the US, but only because you’re balanced by actual socialist and communist political parties and labor unions that are able to extract concessions like that universal healthcare. Looks like a few of those countries are turning fascist again, so just give it some time, and those human rights will be gone, too.

The people probably.

Sure you can bribe people, but it’s a harder when the wealth isn’t concentrated in a few people, and the companies are owned by the people instead of private interests. USSR politicians weren’t known for being rich, but compare that to modern Russian oligarchs, or even US Congressmen. A majority of the US Congressman are millionaires, not at all true for the common populace.

I’m going off statistics and surveys, not anecdotal evidence.

http://thetrumpet.com/6322-eastern-germans-feel-life-was-better-under-communism

http://pewresearch.org/short-reads/2010/04/28/hungary-better-off-under-communism/

http://reason.com/2009/11/16/the-rise-of-communist-nostalgi/

http://voxukraine.org/en/the-strong-hand-curse-why-ukrainians-do-not-like-capitalism

http://balkaninsight.com/2010/11/24/macedonians-deem-communist-past-better-than-present/

http://themoscowtimes.com/2017/12/25/majority-of-russians-regret-soviet-collapse-poll-says-a60039

http://rt.com/news/ussr-collapse-mistake-poll-585/

Don’t I have the power over my happiness in capitalism because I can work towards higher wealth extraction to achieve my own goals?.

If you’re lucky, but you can’t work your way to being billionaire without exploiting people on the way. So, chances are, no. Statistically you’re probably one of the people having wealth extracted than the other way around unless you have a supportive network, friendly investors or parents loaning you money. If not, chances are you’re making it harder for other people, either who work for you, work with you, act as a reserve army of labor, or are victims of your country’s imperialism. It requires some people to suffer as part of the system, but that’s not sustainable. There’s a reason the US has a shrinking middle class, and a growing fascism problem, and economic crises every 10 years. The UK and Canada aren’t far behind, with some groups trying to privatize their health services and such. Europe will be next, with the democratic socialist Scandinavian countries probably last. So it may seem fine where you live now, but give it some years and you’ll be right where we are, with someone trying to sell off your health services or other state assets. I’d be willing to bet.

Because once you reach a certain level, growth isn’t required, you just divide the resources you have to give everyone a happy life. People don’t need infinite money to be happy, but they do a need a minimum amount, studies have shown that. Capitalism denies that minimum amount to a lot of people because of its focus on accumulating and concentrating that wealth.

It had some of the same problems but not all of them. It had universal healthcare, better rights for women, faster increase of education and literacy, less homelessness, less problems with religion interfering with politics, or companies buying politicians, etc.

It also had some new problems we didn’t have like lack of focus on small commodities or suppression of religion, but that’s not fixable or required for communism, it’s just a focus they had specifically. It also had of the same problems we have just from being human, like anti-LGBTQ attitudes, racism against certain groups, bureaucrats, and wars. But communism’s implementation changes between countries, none of those problems are necessary, it’s just stuff that has to be learned from. For example, Cuba is communist but has made great strides towards fixing LGBTQ and racist attitudes, and has eased up on religion. China is communist but has a bigger focus on small manufacturing and as a result has lots of small commodities.

Imagine if we abandoned democracy the first time it “failed” in Greece thousands of years ago or the republic in Rome. I don’t doubt that you have some relatives that suffered, but by comparison, the US and it’s capitalist allies destabilized basically all of South America and Africa. While most people who were alive in the former Soviet block would prefer to go back to when it existed because it caused a huge economic disaster when they sold the countries off for parts and privatized everything for the oligarchs.

The important part is that it’s a system not focused on things like GDP, growth, or money made by corporations to determine success, but the happiness and well-being of all the humans as a collective. Just focusing on that would go a long way, no matter which implementation we used (but imo it probably has to be an implementation of socialism or communism, because capitalism can’t imagine a society without those money and growth metrics).

Oh Yay! Admittedly, I didn’t try it recently but I remember seeing an article that was down. If it’s back up, I’m glad to hear it.

Is torrent galaxy still down? That was my go to and sounds like I have to find another. I am a little worried if they keep bringing down the big ones like that, that we’ll be left with less choices and it’ll be more difficult.

Right? It seems repetitive.

Exploding heads, too, but everyone defederated from that.

I have multiple accounts and feeds. I have one account with basically everything on my home feed and I either browse that account or Everything when I want to be informed doe just mindlessly doom scroll.

On the other hand, this account’s subscribed home feed I put absolutely no news or political stuff on at all, so I just scroll subscribed for this or another account I have when I want to just tune out for a bit lol.

Thanks! I’ll look for that one! And you can tell, I really want to avoid returning to my reddit level of online addiction I was at previously. I’m close with Lemmy, but there’s not enough content for me to get there yet lol.

Haha ya, I totally get that. For me: I’ve been doing more little projects on my phone (designing games on my off time, researching work problems, etc), started carrying around a journal to write in on my bag, I downloaded the Shonen Jump app and started reading manga for anime I’ve wanted to watch but haven’t gotten around to, and I listen to podcasts not just when I’m driving. Hope some of those suggestions help or kickstart your own idea.

I also want to start carrying a book around with me like I did when I was a kid, because I have such a big list to get through and I have lots of pdfs for rpg books I’ve downloaded but haven’t read. I’ve tried to read them on my phone, and I succeeded with one book but the screen is so small lol. Maybe I need to look for a good e-reader that reads pdfs without straining my eyes, like I heard e-ink readers or something like that do, but apparently not with pdfs, I guess?

Unless you don’t vote political opinions do often matter, and they affect people’s lives in real physical ways, especially for oppressed minorities, like LGBTQ people or currently Palestinians, which is why you’ll probably see people speak up for groups like them the most. I’ve never seen anybody be mad at someone for driving an EV car on Lemmy, though. That feels kind of like a straw man.