A BigBrain with a 5th grader's (at best) understanding of economics who has never even been exposed to the labor theory of value and who literally doesn't even know what Socialism is (confusing it with some form of Social Democracy) bursts into a room full of people who have been studying economics for years and starts explaining to them his ever so smart 5th grader's version of economics. It's so on the nose it's like a badly put together meme.

Communes have almost nothing to do with communism. When you are living in a capitalist world and beholden to a capitalist economy, you are not suddenly experiencing communism just because you live on a collective farm. A commune is not "doing communism," not because they are doing something wrong or anything, but because it simply doesn't work like that. In a simple definition of communism, the workers own the means of production. The people living on a commune within capitalism still do not own the means of production, they still exist almost entirely at the whims of the broader capitalist economic structure.

Also, it's just ridiculous to expect a tiny microcosm of any system to represent how sound that system is if it were to be scaled up. Especially when that microcosm is inside of another structure that will actively stamp it out of existence if it threatens to grow. Trying to build a commune within a capitalist country is like trying to build a town at the bottom of the ocean. Everything beyond the limits of your project is hostile to its existence simply as a matter of the surrounding natural forces. But just because it's extremely hard to build a town at the bottom of the ocean, and when it was tried it ended in failure, doesn't mean that towns in general are destined to fail. In an appropriate environment they can and do thrive.

And now an "I know you are what am I!" comeback attempt? Are you actually in grade school?

Also I'm a She not a he, "buddy."

Oh, you mean like how in the US, famously even, it was literally made illegal to be a communist and you were blacklisted by every institution for having even attended a meeting, while known communist revolutionaries were assassinated at every opportunity, some even openly murdered in their beds by cops? Yes, it is disgusting how capitalism mercilessly crushes those who seek human liberation and how in a sick capitalist society it is taboo to even identify as someone who seeks the well-being of all.

Lol, this just gets better and better. The person you're responding to and accusing of not understanding economics is someone who literally hosts the reading groups for books on economics, arguably the most definitive books on economics ever written, as well as scientific socialism and socioeconomic theory, who has read Kapital multiple times, maintains the active reading list for multiple lemmy communities, and has doubtless read more about economics this year than you have read on any topic (from See Spot Run to Harry Potter), in your entire life. But you're telling him he doesn't understand basic economics.

Seriously, if you actually have any interest in pulling your head out of your ignorant ass and maybe growing the fuck up a little bit, go look at his reading course suggestions on economics, it's section 3, and get to reading. Twerp.

Wait, is this a bit and someone is actually playing the role of dipshit liberal know-it-all? This must be a bit and I fell for it.

But it’s a natural state of existence to exist within a broader, hostile context.

No it's not. A commune within a communist society would not at all exist within a hostile context but in one that nurtures it. Likewise a billionaire's corporation like Bezos' amazon dot com does not exist in a naturally hostile context under capitalism, it exists in a context that literally would not allow it to fail, propping it up at all costs. The banks that should have gone under and been utterly annihilated in 2008 were instead propped up and rewarded for their complete failure and sheer incompetence to the extent that mass amounts of wealth were siphoned away from working class to keep them afloat.

Civilization, at all levels, has always been that. Competition is everywhere.

Civilization at all levels has always required profound amounts of cooperation to come into being, to continue to exist, and to thrive. Civilization exists only because of cooperation, not because of competition. Competition has always existed too, but has been more of a hindrance than a benefit to civilization and certainly not a requirement like cooperation is. The cult-like worship of competition is something that the capitalists have fostered and spread for the obvious reason that widespread belief in this lie is beneficial to them. I would urge you not to fall for a very obvious and simple-minded ploy.

If a system requires nothing else to be competing with it, in order to work, then it’s not viable.

Gibberish.

The US and China are rapidly approaching a new kind of media-driven Cold War

I'd say we're already there even though it is largely one-sided.

with the unaligned nations being the battlefronts for dueling propaganda efforts

How do you figure? I'm not saying you're wrong, just rather I don't see too much propaganda aimed at other nations, rather it's imperial core countries aiming their propaganda at their own populations for usual consent-manufacturing reasons, and perhaps China aiming a little bit at their own population but to a far lesser extent as to be almost insignificant in comparison. China doesn't really need to manufacture any consent domestically because it's not the one saber-rattling for a conflict. When it comes to peripheral nations, the west mostly just says to them "do what we tell you to or else" and China mostly just says "hey, whatever, let's just do some trading."

The problem that the western propagandists have is that they’ve generally gotten really bad at it.

Well, in a way. You're right that all they seem to know to do is ratchet up the sanctions, but their method of propaganda is sheer saturation. Make sure that every mainstream media outlet is on board with the anti-China propaganda and steer all major social media such that "China Bad!" appears to be a unanimous consensus, and job done. And it works extremely well. The state propaganda doesn't need to be very sophisticated itself at this point because the consent-manufacturing machine has been built, maintained, and well-oiled for a long time already.

To quote Dr Lubinda Haabazoka

That is a great quote and really does sum up the comparison of how the west and China each approach international relations with would-be economic partners. It's a good demonstration for why any propaganda battle between the west and China for the approval of the rest of the world would necessarily be so one-sided. One of them has to lie and endlessly make up excuses for their actions and behavior (bullying and swindling) while the other can just calmly gesture towards their actions and behavior (equal exchange and genuine support).

And just to add, if you somehow missed it like I did (until just a minute ago), @[email protected] provided a ton of information debunking the Uyghur "genocide" myth right here in this very thread. He just did a great favor for any well-meaning liberals who actually want to find out more about what the situation really is in Xinjiang, he basically did yall's homework for you.

Well, the most serious lie fortunately has the most material that thoroughly proves its falsehood. The following link contains more links to many such resources: https://xinjiangahr.carrd.co/ It's a place to start, both if you want just immediate proof that there is no genocide as well as if you want to learn more about what really has been going on in Xinjiang.

Even though they still are obligated to call it a spy balloon because The Narrative is still officially that it was, even western media have quietly admitted that despite flying across the continent, the balloon did absolutely no spying and actually appeared to be utterly incapable of doing any spying. Weird, how inefficient! And seriously, anyone who has even a passing knowledge of weather balloons or spycraft would have told you this from the beginning, as many did. https://xcancel.com/Reuters/status/1674507379306557462

No, Winnie the Pooh is not banned in China and simply looking around a bit for things that exist in China confirms this. Telling people who live in China that people in the US believe Pooh is banned will result in laughter. This is in China, does it look banned? https://www.shanghaidisneyresort.com/en/attractions/adventures-winnie-pooh/ There was a racist caricature image/meme that along with portraying Xi as Pooh also portrayed Obama as the Tigger character. (I would hope no one here would need explaining why both of those are extremely racist). That specific racist image was officially censored online, but censoring racism is a good thing, and again, Pooh the character, the franchise, or anything else like that, none of it banned. That it was is just another silly lie. Though the whole of reddit (for example) believes the lie because it aligns with the rest of the bullshit they think they know about China which is just straight up false.

China's infamous "Social Credit Score" also isn't real: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social-credit-score-isnt-real/ There is a kind of rating system of businesses that allows people to score them based on how well they are a service to the community they're in, but seeing as most people would recognize that as a good thing, the sinophobic propagandists won't tell you that, but instead fabricate yet another bogus story to paint China as a boogeyman. This one is especially galling because all the scary things they made up with this one actually has a much worse version that is reality in the west. It's such a blatant case of projection it's jokerifying.

Seriously, please answer those of us asking what you're talking about. I am asking in good faith, what blog? The people you are talking to are as far from alt-right as it is possible to get and probably advocate for the elimination of alt-right ideology in a much more definitive way than you do (assuming you are a liberal).

Just because it is (and always was) a complete lie that capitalism would lead to prosperity for working people, that doesn't mean that capitalists aren't doing capitalism. Capitalism hasn't been corrupted from some ideal system into something else, this is what capitalism is and it's been known as such for over a century and a half.

Ah ok, my mistake. I saw you comment "Hey everyone, it’s time to come discuss Capital again!" on that reading group's first gathering for Volume 1 Chapter 1 and so assumed that meant it wasn't your "first rodeo."

It's such an irony to me that people who call us "tankies" and say that we are somehow caricatures of communists, always make such caricatures out of themselves. Like, instead of engaging with any of FunkyStuff's very reasonable, calmly stated questions, you go off about how we ("tankies") just decided to be evil, and calling us ridiculous while behaving in such a ridiculous, blatantly and needlessly antagonistic way yourself. It's over the top.

Paraphrasing:
FunkyStuff: asks a calm, concise series of questions that are meant to help clarify the issue.
lunnrais: "See?! Look how frothing these evil, ridiculous lunatic tankies are!!"

And this after correctly recognizing that the red scare was a terrible witch hunt? But it was people like us, people who believe what we believe, that were the "witches" of that particular persecution. We are simply what most communists in the world look like, we believe what most communists in the world believe, people who have very clear and consistent views. But instead of honestly trying to engage or actually understand why "tankies" believe the things they do, you just smear us with lies and pretend that the position of Marxist-Leninist communists is just some bananas, made-up-on-the-fly, contrarian position, rather than one with deep foundations that have been developed over decades of intense thought and practice including by people fighting in the trenches for their own and others liberation. To you, were the Black Panthers "tankies"? Do you know about their mutual support of and with North Korea, or did they just decide to be "evil" to pwn the libs? Was Che Guevara a "tankie"? Is Michael Parenti? Were they all just ridiculous contrarians who liked the picture that reactionaries ("republicans") painted of them?

Is this sarcasm? The venn diagram that represents overlap of what nazis believe & value vs what the CIA believes & values may not be a perfect circle, but it's fairly close.

Death to America is a saying that goes back much further than Bin Laden, and there have been many good reasons for many people to say it. I'm sure many of the people indigenous to the land (that wasn't "America" to them) had a probably rather similar phrase and said it probably rather often as that entity commenced with their genocide. And since that time, it's not as if there hasn't been a lack of good reasons to call for the destruction of the settler-colonial project responsible for the worst imperialist cruelties since the British Empire (the immediate ancestor). But you might consider questioning why you seem to only associate the phrase with that one particular person.

When you’re in the belly of the beast, it’s easy to miss what’s going on outside. I don’t think it’s one sided, by any stretch.

It's true. my perspective is unavoidably limited by being in an imperial core country, but is there any evidence for how China is conducting a propaganda war against the US (or at all) anywhere near the same volume or scale that the US is against China?

Like, nobody in Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Israel or even Ukraine really takes the US propaganda seriously. They’ve got their own internal propaganda that is far more compelling, and it’s often diametrically opposed to the liberal democratic line.

Yeah, I agree. But that's what I was getting a about the western propaganda being mostly designed for their respective domestic populations, it's not produced for the sake of the common folk of non-western countries. Is the US even attempting to make propaganda directed at the populations of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, or Ukraine? They don't need to, since for the most part, those who rule in those countries are in alignment with US interests anyway. The liberal democratic line exists (once again) for the population within the core countries themselves. Like, the US doesn't give a single shit that Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy. Ukraine? Vassals of NATO, of course their internal propaganda is in line with the US. They would never even think of siding with China over the US and despise China anyway for not siding against Russia. Israel can't exist without the will and favor of the US, they are a massive military outpost for the west in the middle east and are autonomous only so far as they are willing to be more openly fascist in how they go about doing what the US wants them to do anyway, the US in no way needs to produce propaganda to influence them. Turkey does at least have some differing interests than the US, but they're still a NATO country and so far haven't had the reason or will to rock the boat in a way that is pro-China and anti-US.

I think it is a mistake to think Chinese businessmen and bureaucrats are simply beyond bullying and swindling.

Oh believe me, that's not a mistake I'm making. But as has been said many times, business interests (owners of private capital) in China are on a leash held by the state, in the west it's the other way around. I don't doubt that Chinese capitalists would swindle just as much as any other capitalists, but they aren't the ones calling the shots, the CPC is. And the CPC has repeatedly demonstrated that they only want to do fair, equal exchange, mutually beneficial economics with other countries. They don't need a massive propaganda machine to convince their trading partners that this is their agenda since their actions over the last couple decades are convincing enough, hence the quote you posted: "Every time China visits we get a hospital, every time Britain visits we get a lecture."

The incentives of a communist country are fundamentally different from a capitalist state.

Absolutely.

This allows Chinese diplomats to exercise techniques that NATO states do not have the political tool bag to deploy.

I guess I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Techniques like equal exchange?

If .worlders could see hexbear and lemmygrad, they'd have an aneurysm. But then some of them would recover and look further into it and realize the commies are right. But that is of course why they're not allowed to see it, as you said.

Just take a look at any mainstream western media that mentions China and it shouldn't take too long to spot a lie, it will probably even be in the headline. Even just the fact that it's practically a joke-meme that anything China does that is unambiguously positive will get a headline in the west that includes "But At wHaT cOsT?!?"

But for a few obvious, overt examples: Uighur "genocide." Spy balloons. Winnie the Pooh ban. Social credit scores.

Although Invidious is now broken due to recent youtube changes, that always happens tho. Cat and mouse game

Yeah I really needed it tonight and it was a major disappointment that all of the public instances are broken with no ETA on being fixed. As I mentioned in another thread, I love invidious, I'm deeply grateful to the devs an those who run the public instances, I deeply mourn piped, but I fear for invidious' future. It already seems like a once much more thriving community has been struggling to keep going. Like, it was sad to see ggtyler leave the scene, though I get why and can't blame him.

I know it's self hostable of course but I don't think most people are willing to do that, tbh I'm not even sure I am. But I guess I'd have no other choice if the public instances all went kaput because I will not be using that disgusting site youtube and giving them more traffic. I'd be too bitter to be able to enjoy or even focus on any of the videos.

oh yeah, reddit even banned the sub for it, r/invidious. What fuckin' bullshit is that, you know?