they’re talking out their ass.

Yes, which is par for the course.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/why-do-north-korean-defector-testimonies-so-often-fall-apart

What is behind the inconsistencies?

Cash payments in return for interviews with North Korean refugees have been standard practice in the field for years.

Initially, the payment was to cover the cost of meals and local transport, which was approximately $30 in the late 1990s when I first began interviewing in China and South Korea. However, the fees had risen to $200 per hour by the time I attempted to interview people from North Korea in May 2014.

A government official from the South Korean ministry of unification told me the range of fees could vary wildly, from $50-500 per hour, depending on the quality of information.

But this practice raises a difficulty: how does the payment change the relation between a researcher and an interviewee, and what effect will it have on the story itself?

deleted by creator

You could wipe every reactionary television station, radio station, magazine, social media, and newspaper off the face of the earth, but capitalism’s internal contradictions would make their resurgence inevitable.

So long as wages are suppressed, social safety nets withered, wealth inequality balloons, education decays, retirement age grows, and healthcare becomes unattainable, the backside into fascism is inevitable.

How do you think fascism took hold in Germany, and how was it mitigated?

Your analysis falls into the same trap as other liberal analysis - that our means of changing our politics is a function of “changing people’s minds” in “the marketplace of ideas”. Liberal analysis champions the notion that “ideas” are what turn the wheels of history. In reality, it was Soviet T34s blasting Nazis into mist that mitigated German fascism - not some completely unachievable and unpragmatic scheme to break into retirement homes across the country and put parental controls on grandpa’s favorite flavor of right wing pundit TV.

Who here has played battle cats?

Dog…

My original claim was that in none of these articles is there any evidence of Putin or Xi expressing interesting in extending their lifespan.

It’s a claim you still have yet to disprove, btw.

Claiming that Russia is not technologically advanced is a nonsequiter. Refusing to engage with a nonsequiter is not underhanded. And you’re not humouring anyone by backing down from your attempt to turn this conversation into one about Russia’s technological capabilities. You’re just backpedaling.

Again, please show me where Putin or Xi expressed interest in extending their lives.

Not even remotely related to the part I quoted and laughed at, but I’ll humour you

So how does a claim regarding Russia’s technological capabilities relate to my original comment? The only person being humoured here is you.

The way the healthy skepticism just leaves the liberal mind once a state department hit pieces comes out is laughable. You have been effortlessly oriented. Yall just eat this shit up. “Deduction”… lmao.

Again, maybe one day show me where Putin or Xi expressed interest in extending their lifespan. You won’t.

Just read your article. Nowhere in it did Xi or Putin express fear of mortality or an interest in extending their personal lifespans.

All this is is musings on transhumanism.

[mortality] haunt[s] people—especially aging tyrants who fear that the icy hand of death is upon their shoulder and want far more time to ensure both national and personal glory.

Show me where Xi or Putin expressed fear of mortality. Better yet, show me where Xi or Putin expressed interest in extending their lifespan.

Show me where Putin or Xi expressed interest in living to 150.

leaders of two of the world’s most technologically prominent countries muse on the prospects of transhumanism in front of a crowd of dozens

rabid disapproval from liberals who claim that Putin and Xi got caught on a hot mic wanting to live forever so they can rule eternally or something, idk

Seriously, the reading comprehension is abysmal in this thread. Can someone show me where Putin or Xi said they personally wished to live to 150?

Okay, the courts deputize 300 people to go try and compel the executive to follow the law - then what? They accuse Trump with contempt of court, serve him papers, threaten to seize assets, or even arrest him? All of this has been tried before. How do you see this playing out?

At the heart of the comment you replied to is an implicit claim “a judicial that has nothing other than legal and procedural means is doomed to fail against Trump”. And all you’ve pointed out is that there are various other legal and procedural means they have yet to try. This is the cursed slogan of liberals who’ve watched Trump piss on every legal proceeding over the past 10+ years.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Until the courts have guns, they’re toothless. Trump has subsumed the American legal system.

This blind faith that our “rugged”, “resilient”, and “pragmatic” system will somehow automatically course correct and steer us out of this fascist devolution is pure liberalism. The genie is out of the bottle.

Yes… that is not only possible, but likely when n=5…

Please, the original claim was “Chinese people feel coerced”, which is wrong by every metric, and there is no evidence to support this claim.

Although China is certainly not immune from severe social and economic challenges, there is little evidence to support the idea that the CCP is losing legitima- cy in the eyes of its people. In fact, our survey shows that, across a wide variety of metrics, by 2016 the Chi- nese government was more popular than at any point during the previous two decades. On average, Chinese citizens reported that the government’s provision of healthcare, welfare, and other essential public services was far better and more equitable than when the survey began in 2003. Also, in terms of corruption, the drop in satisfaction between 2009 and 2011 was complete- ly erased, and the public appeared generally support- ive of Xi Jinping’s widely-publicized anti-corruption campaign. Even on the issue of the environment, where many citizens expressed dissatisfaction, the majority of respondents expected conditions to improve over the next several years. For each of these issues, China’s poorer, non-coastal residents expressed equal (if not even greater) confidence in the actions of government than more privileged residents. As such, there was no real sign of burgeoning discontent among China’s main demographic groups, casting doubt on the idea that the country was facing a crisis of political legitimacy.

https://rajawali.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/07/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf

Let me guess: Harvard is tankie?

Again, asking for any type of source or statistic over anecdotes. Your “observations” go against reputable polling and statistics of people in China.

Was this survey conducted in Taiwan and signed as “China” complying with “one China policy”?

No… in fact this was a Harvard study that started off with “Given how China is an authoritarian nightmare, how widespread is support for the government?”

https://rajawali.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/07/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf

They’re in the phase where people are too scared to resist

Source?

Looks like a pretty posh crib for a disgraced Nazi.

Caterpillar: “We help our customers build a better, more sustainable world”

Caterpillar’s better, more sustainable world:

Enjoy the freedom of having the likes of Meta and Google pull another Cambridge analytica. Or the freedom of having multi-billion dollar companies like YouTube aggressively push algorithms that steer people down the alt right pipeline. Or the freedom of instagram mechanically and ruthlessly instilling in children as much body dysphoria and low self esteem as possible in the name of profit.

It was literally only two years ago that Meta was got caught promoting racial violence in Myanmar. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/

Any reasonable person can look at the heinous acts carried out by western tech companies in recent years and realize that the great firewall has been vindicated.

Edit: “CCP shill”, “whataboutism”, “two things can be bad”… come on folks, its time to start thinking of some new thought-terminating cliches. These are so 2023.

When we go to unprovable predictions about the future so that the your argument cannot be refuted, the debate ends right there. I don’t play what if.

Thats… called a hypothetical. Hypotheticals allow you to do thought experiments - which are not some conniving, underhanded, or fallacious way of arguing.

If, hypothetically, in 30 years, your choice is between a democrat who wants 10 genocides and a replublican who wants 11, will you still be militantly democrat?

I have no problem voting for whoever is the better candidate of the two- regardless of whether or not they align with my policies ideology

You do realize the error with this utility calculation, right? A few more years of this style of “pragmatic liberal utilitarianism” will have you voting for a Dem who wants 9 genocides over a republican who wants 10. You’ll find yourself voting for 2036 Dem candidate Ted Cruz as he runs against the republicans’ candidate of Mecha Hitler.

This strategy isn’t sustainable, and what you’ve shown is that there is no number of Palestinian children you wouldnt sacrifice to bide time for your crumbling oligarchy. At some point, we have a moral duty to the victims of our imperialism to simply dismantle our genocidal country.

Just tried that in 2016. Debbie Schultz and Hillary decided to quell Bernie fervor, elevated Trump, and secured years of Trump and a fascist devolution. Utterly embarrassing. The Democratic party is not going to stop fascism.