It’s not politically incorrect at all. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are just too simplistic ways to interpret our complex world. It’s idealistic to try and put people in such simple categories, and it leads to a delutional worldview.

The only ‘politically incorrect’ part is that some people might jump down your throat for pointing out things about Hitler which weren’t terrible, because unfortunately neo-Nazis abuse this rhetoric as a wolfwhistle or for whitewashing. But as long as you’re clearly not doing that, there’s nothing politically incorrect with saying Hitler drank water.

We have evidence that China is developing Warriors of Mass Destruction. /

That’s not the point. You can say the same about Blender, etc.

Yes it’s ToS, and also its structure - it’s basically a non-profit club rather than a for-profit business like GitHub (now owned by M$), which means it isn’t prone to enshittifying.

That spam was a troll who found a loophole in the notification system. It was obviously not a data breach. That’s clear to anyone who’s worked with software databases or web servers.

Glad I could help :) My curriculum was similar, mine didn’t really talk about communist countries at all, and since a lot of our media like movies come from the US during the Cold War, when their government’s biggest enemies were the Soviet Union and the worker labor movement fighting for more worker rights, those movies often chose communist countries or communists as an easy choice for villains, so there’s a shallow but very widespread and normal idea that those countries are just simply evil, and ours is good. On top of that, most newspapers and television channels are owned by the richest people (mega-millionaires and billionaires, not just middle-class money), rich enough to own or invest in them, and funded by large companies advertising, and usually the people with that much money love how capitalism is working and are threatened by socialism or communism, so they have a self-interest in highlighting all the mistakes of those countries and all the wins of their own. I was amazed that a few years before, the US government was putting out posters like these during World War II, where Russian and Chinese soldiers are celebrated as allies alongside Canadians and English!

On a related point, it’s also important to remember that many people instinctively compare these countries to rich, developed countries like Britain, the USA, and others, instead of comparing them to how they were before and after. I used to do this too, but countries are so different, with different histories, resources and neighbors that it’s usually unfair to simply compare them like that. This short 3 minute clip from a Michael Parenti lecture gives some good examples of this, focusing on their experience talking to Cubans.

• reddit (I joined Lemmy years before most people reading this, and was already only lurking a couple of selected subreddits through an alternative frontend for years before that)
• Bill Gates (FOSS have hated that prick since 1976, but even I was hating their reputation laundering long before right-wing conspiracy nuts decided Gates was a communist vaccine microchip liberal or whatever)
• Musk, I guess. I was years ahead of the mainstream, but again, not ahead of socialist communities and environmentalists.
• and twitter, and BlueSky

haha I think they meant chilli hot instead of temperature hot, but I can’t say no to a nice gravy.

I go for salsas and chunky condiments (e.g. black bean chilli crisp, hot Indian chutneys) than just a liquid hot sauce, even then it’s sriracha.

Haha I wonder if they just didn’t want to share their secrets!

Make no mistake, this is far beyond one dude/ette. You’d need a whole (non-electoral) well-organized party to educate and agitate, and earn the support of many thousands or even millions of citizens through their actions, in order to build the necessary movement.

Again, it’s been done before and under more oppressive conditions, but it’s a tough road.

It sure does. This work gives some sense of the timescale and clarifies that even just the domination of monarchy (rather than bourgeois rule) was a turbulent process over centuries.

And holy fuck, is it hard to find good, solid, well-sourced information about how to do that safely.

I have a similar experience with some basic fermenting (e.g. kombucha, pickling). I’m growing cultures of microbes like yeast and bacteria and while I’ve been able to spot some obvious unwanted cultures on failed batches, there’s a surprising absence of reputable info and unfortunately I’ve had to get by on the brewing equivalent of gym broscience, mostly on reddit, some of which I’ve spotted is misinformation. The SEO AI-generated articles plaguing search results don’t help either.

affect (effect??)

Yeah, I think ‘affect’ is right. ‘Affect’ (verb) means ‘to change’, while an ‘effect’ (noun) is the result. Shining a light on your face will affect you by creating a blinding effect. I may be oversimplifying it but there are plenty of articles about the two often-confused words that go into more detail if you care.

I even have hope for the slight voting majority which put Trump back in power. [whole paragraph]

Many of them, probably the majority of them, have core mutual interests with us at the end of the day. We are the worker class. Once you’re able to strip away culture war crap and electoralist talking points, there’s a large amount of shared ground.

There truly are some people who are too far gone, and some other people who benefit from looting the country, but if you can find shared ground and teach instead of argue, picking battles, I’d say there’s a better shot at reaching through to some of them. In fact, to prove the point through exaggeration, if you’re a decent communicator who’s able to explain technical concepts in familiar language, you can straight-up outline Marxist economic theory to them without triggering an argument. This is more a playful example than a strong example, but it gets the point across, that you can sometimes draw out some smart insights from the rubble, because many of them are oppressed by the same system and fed up at it, they’ve simply been encouraged by that mass media towards the wrong way targets or the wrong solutions. For a personal example, I’ve seen union members complaining about legitimate grievances at work and the company’s abuse of progressive language (e.g. abusing the term “diversity” as a cover to outsource jobs to unqualified cheaper foreign labor) but unfortunately haven’t learned the tactful language to properly express their critique, so one could understandably mistake it for reactionary “them chinese took er jerbs!” rhetoric, falsely accuse them of racist values and push this person further anti-left. It’s certainly important to be aware of wolfwhistles and red flags, but it’s also important to not jump to conclusions either.

There are some lovely, smart and aware people in that huge country. It’s not homogeneous. But overall? It won’t get much better without a revolution. And that’s a huge ask. It’s possible, other countries have managed despite police repression and mass illiteracy, but it’s a long journey, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the people with the awareness and the means will just try fleeing instead.

Your post implied that all countries outside of the west sided with China when this is clearly not true.

I didn’t mean to imply all countries, and it’s my mistake for phrasing it like that, sorry.

Even in Africa there is a lot of pushback among the population (not necessarily the elites) against Chinese imperialism. Sri Lanka is another example where there is a measures of opposition to jingoistic Chinese meddling.

That’s true. It’s also important to note, at least with Africa, that there is also pushback against ongoing European imperialism, so when it comes to a “do you prefer US or China more” situation like OP, they might still pick one of them while also giving pushback.

Cool stuff, thanks for sharing!

please don’t shuffle blame away as if there was some giant institutional force preventing them from voting

My point isn’t that the giant institutional force prevented people from voting (although voter suppression is, incidentally, a huge issue too).

All the US federal elections are a popularity contest, where rich people have ludicrous amounts of power to determine which politicians even end up as viable options on the ballot, through tools such as lobbying parties, mass media ownership, flak and advertising [wikipedia: further reading] to influence the exposure and framing of candidates. How many candidates does the typical citizen even learn about from the news or pop culture? Probably a number between 1 and 4, and only two will be endorsed by the major parties and therefore viable options in practice. That’s the institutional power in action. One can’t look at Clinton, Biden and Trump in 2016 and 2020 and pretend any were the best (or even decent) choices for a country’s leader. These candidates rise to the top because of institutional pressures, hence, pay-to-win - the owning class decide on the options that citizens can vote on.

IIRC, Australia (I’m assuming you’re from there because of your instance?) has a voting system where at least the minor parties are a viable option and independent candidates have a real chance. That’s not the case in the US federal election. There’s no option but the big two, the parties beholden to billionaires and mega-millionaires through tools like lobbying and mass media needed to win the popularity contest.

Obviously the PRC also has major influence over which candidates citizens can vote for, and they don’t have direct federal elections for party leaders (they’re elected by the local members who are elected by citizens), but the main difference is that it’s not a popularity contest where celebrities like Trump, Reagan and Schwarzenegger end up as political decision makers partly due to name recognition rather than credentials and trust, or where money decides the available options.

Left wing voters didn’t show up

I find it hard to believe that Gaza protest votes were anywhere near enough to sway the election, we’re talking IIRC about a 15 million drop. The Democrats weren’t delivering. Voter turnout from both parties went down.