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Just like with vaccines, some people apparently have lived in a first world bubble for so long and so deeply that they have forgotten what the alternatives really look like.

Of course there is democracy and corruption is much worse in non-democratic countries.


Most non-democratic countries that exist are capitalist countries.

Even the ones you're probably thinking about are capitalist, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Sudan, etc. All capitalists.

Capitalism creates authoritarianism through corruption as a grey market business practice.


Ever notice how socialists ... never discuss real-world socialism? They only discuss what goes wrong with others (and of course all gets lumped together, when of course it is absolutely forbidden to draw the connection between western socialism and Soviets, or especially North Korea or Iran. But that the Saudia Arabian and the US economy work the same way, and have the same level of authoritarianism, that you can just state as gospel)

But here's one stat I think illustrates how well it goes in practice: the Taliban in full-blown war caused less victims in Afghanistan than communists did in peacetime (in fact less than half. This, incidentally, is the actual reason the Taliban started fighting the west, not CIA support. Communism is STILL one of the western influences that they state they try to eradicate, and I doubt that part of their agenda is very controversial in Afghanistan. And, of course, western socialists never mention this, and especially don't discuss why or how socialism came to Afghanistan, and how it is the direct cause, not CIA support, of the current situation in Afghanistan and Iran)

And this is not an exception in communism. For instance: "peace" in the Soviet Union killed more people than WW2 did worldwide, including the holocaust, hell, include all conflicts the Soviets ever had and it's still true. Hell, include all conflicts in Europe of the entire 20th century and it was still more. Same in China.

So I feel all rational people can honestly say "even if you're right, capitalist authoritarianism is still better", and given that authoritarianism is almost a basic principle of socialism, certainly in practice, I don't understand where they're coming from in the first place.


To laud Afghan mujahideen with their verified acid attacks on women is insane on your part. Afghanistan was a monarchy before the people overthrew their monarchs for socialism and before the americans funded their extremists, who you praise.

The Afghan socialists were fighting monarchies, warlords(tribal land lords) and even shitty socialist leaders. - Figures of Soviet deaths are overblown to include non-births and even Nazi deaths, that is the state of anti-communist propaganda these days (right now). There is no denying that Soviets made mistakes, I am no apologist, but the western narrative is wrong on so many accounts that it discredits itself. A country trying to industrialize while undergoing a civil war and foreign attacks had a hard time organizing their agriculture under a drought. It is objectively a massive failure, but it is not inherent to socialist democracy.

What you fail to mention about the world wars is that both world wars were caused by capitalist tensions between nations. Both world wars can be fully attributed to capitalists enrichment and their contradictions between nation states. These are the gashes in humanity caused by capitalist colonialism. -

Let me tell you, Socialism is not something you vote for, its something you do. Democracy takes the efforts of society to make happen.

Neighborhood councils are a fundamental part of socialist theory. Ask yourself why you've never heard of it? Who produces the media content that gets promoted and published? Is it your neighbors with their social interests? Or is it massive capitalist publishers with their interests? The censorship in capitalist societies is about monopoly control and volume/amplification.

Capitalists are a fundamental threat to mass democracy.


Your entire reply is unhinged and total lunacy. Except for this part:

> Capitalists are a fundamental threat to mass democracy.

I wouldn't be much of a liberal capitalist if I didn't tell you "YES it is! Or at least I 100% support you thinking that. You should fight those aspects and help out". That you're a communist that defends mass-executing people for trying to participate ... well it's not like you'll honestly discuss that aspect of socialism, in Afghanistan, Russia, Iran or elsewhere.


I dont defend mass executions or even the mistakes of communism. Mismanagement and murder is inexcusable. But i do not see them as inherent to socialism, but as product of their times.

Conveniently you dont mention any of the mass executions caused by capitalism?

All the wars, all the covert operations, all the murderous and genocidal dictatorships, two world wars?

Knowing full well a sitting US president critiqued the military industrial complex as a capitalist threat.

Capital is even responsible for on going genocides.

You know well I do not advocate for mass murder.

I am advocating for mass democracy and the only way to acheive that permanently is through democratized production. I am advocating for progress and for an end of using base material needs for profits.


> Conveniently you dont mention any of the mass executions caused by capitalism?

Such as? Oh wait, this is where you blame a communist massacre, like say the many ones committed in Cuba, on the pressure a capitalist state put on those poor, defenseless, communist warlords. Che Guevara!

It's like saying Iranian revolution was caused by capitalism (the oil companies), when of course the actual organizing, the starting of the revolution itself, and even a few massacres were executed by communists (yes, the most famous one was khomeini, however, that does not mean there were no others). Those poor massacring communists had no choice! They were forced to massacre by the pressure of the oil companies, who had a party in the desert! That just left them no choice at all. And then they just happened to bring a dictator to power, completely by accident! Victims!

(btw: in the Iranian case, if you kill to bring a dictator to power, that this dictator then proceeds to kill you does not make you innocent, or any less of a murderer, it just makes you a stupid dead murderer, who allied himself with a better murderer, and you dragged yourself into death and 10s of millions of people into 50 years of misery out of, let's face it, jealousy. THAT is what communism brought to Iran. Oh and Afghanistan was worse)

> You know well I do not advocate for mass murder.

Yes you do. That's what communism is: you replace money with a threat "do what the state plans for you to do or ..."

Since it is in almost everyone's best interest to NOT do what the state planned (because otherwise there would be no difference between capitalism and communism) you need to actually apply the threat. And any threat devolves into killing, after X steps, in some percentage of cases. X differs, the percentage differs, but not the end result. And because the threat needs to be universal in communism, the percentage is going to be large in practice.

> I am advocating for progress and for an end of using base material needs for profits.

No you are advocating for a planned economy and are refusing to think about any practical aspects of that. You are no different from an inquisitor or a taliban executioner who "protects" the people, but you can't see it because your cause is righteous.


Damn, dude. Dont embarass yourself. You have no idea what socialism is.

If you dont know of any murderous actions on behalf of transnational capitalist entities and states I suggest you read any modern history.

From the invasions and massacres in my own country, to 2 world wars, to colonialism, to dissappearances all across sotuh america, to outright murder of democratically elected presidents.

Did you know drug cartels are capitalist entities as well? They extort, murder and traffick for profits extracted by labor.

I gave you countless examples that you discard. I gave you accurate narratives to world events you were weaponizing. And I've explained how socialism has nothing to do with "government" control and murder.

The facts of my support is that I think the only way to permanent mass democracy is democratized production. That's all. That's socialism.

To you capitalism is an abstract idea you conflate with freedom. To you socialism is murder and dictatorship.

I suggest you reanalyze your concepts.


> Did you know drug cartels are capitalist entities as well? They extort, murder and traffick for profits extracted by labor.

Ah so you go for big sounding well-known problems, that kill 0.01% of the average socialist state then? Seen that argument too. And I'll show you the problem. They are serious problems ... but not compared to a small socialist problem, say Venezuela. The Venezuelan state is socialist, does what you suggest.

To stay directly in your argument: it turned out they work and support drug cartels. So your presenting of socialism as either the opposite or a solution to drug cartels is very disingenuous.


Nearly all the countries that support cartels are capitalists.

Venezuela is a progressive reformist state with many many capitalists. The reason why its considered a rogue state in your capitalist media is that it wont play ball with the american capitalist block/cartel.

Drugs could be made a legal industry in order to end the drug crisis. But drug cartels preserve regulation-less profits. Its literally billions they save by avoiding legality and taxation.


Finally, here we are "that's not real socialism, my version is much better". I would like to point out that EVEN NOW marxists don't see any reason to disavow Chavez.

> Venezuela is a progressive reformist state ...

That's not how Chavez grabbed power and amassed billions. Not at all.

Chavez, the billionnaire drug-cartel supporter, hero of marxist communism. If it didn't destroy so many lives it'd be a sickening joke. Then again, people still see Arafat or Guevara as heroes of communism too, and compared to them Chavez is ... well, a lot smarter, but at least in Chavez's case I'd be reluctant to call him a mass murderer, whereas Arafat and Guevara definitely are mass murderers. Arafat was a billionnaire when he died too.

https://marxist.com/chavez-capitalism-transcended-socialism....


My inability of being in nature without a feeling of being tortured comes from my brain not working correctly and it's not "undesired behavior". Luckily, my ADHD meds are able to fix that.


I stopped using house work as example because people always answer "oh yeah, I also dislike housework". People just don't get it when this example is used. I switched to "not able to go outside for a walk even though I like being in nature" and "often not able to follow or participate in long talks with multiple persons".

There also is a good chance I don't have children because just being alive and by myself was super exhausting before I got diagnosed in my late 30. Having children was unthinkable until then.

But was it catastrophic? I don't know. I finished college except it took two times as long and got a job where I of course suffered pretty much the whole time.

But that was all very normal for me, just the way I was, at least that's what I used to believe.


Largely depends on the parameters. I believe it also assumes infinite resources. In general it's a very simple model not meant to explain all and everything.


The interesting thing here is that it breaks assumptions that to be "alpha" you MUST dominate to win. Even if within only these parameters, it suggest there are conditions where being "nice" isn't just a nebulous ethical thing, but it's an optimal conflict strategy.

I think it carries two different messages to two different groups. If you're a "lets all be friends" type, then it's important that you also guard the resources that allow you to be nice. Being provokable isn't "being mean" its the thing allowing you to be nice. If you're a "take advantage of the rubes" type, it's a hint that there might be metaphorical money left on the table by being too greedy.

> not meant to explain all and everything.

That it's not true ALL the time, is less interesting than the fact that it's true some of the time. At least to me.


They can't be chill and like us at the same time. Chilled aliens most likely don't invent faster than light travel so I pretty much hope aliens won't find us or are not interested in us.



> I can tell you that it is the output of a function, not a distinct entity that exists on its own independently of the computation.

Could you elaborate? What is the output of that function if not an entity in it's own? Having studied math with philosophiy minor long time ago I am curious.


It's part of a dependency relation, the function computes and produces an output that we call sqrt(2).

On the other hand, using the axioms of ZFC, one can say any real number exists without having a function to compute it, or a proof to construct it.

For an ultrafinitist, or any finitist for that matter, we say that you only need the minimum of ingredients to produce math -- you do not need to assume anything over and above that, as it's not even helpful in the verification process.

So assuming only finitely many symbols and finitely many numbers, I can produce what we call sqrt(2). We only ever verify it numerically and finitely anyways. We can never reach decimals at infinite ordinals.

So it makes no sense to say, "Hey I assume transfinitely many entities, and my assumption says these numbers exist even though the proofs and decimal expansions are only ever finite."


When / How did versioning enter versioning the awkward state we have today? There is cl.exe, MSBuild and build chain at the very least (now at work computer at the moment, pretty sure I am wrong with the making here) with versioning that is close enough to each other to be confusing and related to each other in word ways. Naming itself also feels confusing to me. Documentation also only helps when you already have a good idea what's going on.


>When / How did versioning enter versioning the awkward state we have today? There is cl.exe, MSBuild and build chain

The multiple confusing version numbers are caused by each software component (e.g. "cl.exe" vs "msbuild.exe" vs IDE "devenv.exe" vs platform toolkit SDK) evolving separately over decades. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_C%2B%2B#Inter...)

E.g. Today's "cl.exe" at version 19.x goes all the way back to 1983 with Microsoft C 1.0 for MS-DOS. Just a text-based command line compiler with no C++, no GUI, no "Studio", etc. 43 years of the core compiler going from 1.x to 19.x. The Visual IDE component of VC++ version 17.x has a different version history going back to 1993 with 1.0. Microsoft C# also has different version numbers of C# language version vs .NET version vs CLR version, etc.

It's analogous to Linux world of different tools with different version numbers. GCC is 15.x, glibc is 2.4, make is 4.4, etc. If you include a "visual GUI IDE" like Jetbrains CLion, that's yet another different version (252.x) that doesn't match any of the others.

Microsoft could hypothetically "synchronize/unify" all version numbers for all disparate products to be a single number ... akin to Apple using version "26" to synchronize Xcode with iOS, etc by introducing large numerical gaps like v18 --> v26. That's probably not going to happen. Likewise, different groups at GNU are not going to agree to synchronize all version numbers such that next release will be GCC 20.0, glibc 20.0, and make 20.0.


You can't do that in a performant way and going that route can lead to problems, because characters (= graphemes in the language of Unicode) generally don't always behave as developers assume.


I don't see why it should. I also believe parent is wrong as there are unambiguous rules about when to use ß or ss.

Never thought of it but maybe there are rules that allow to visually present the code point for ß as ss? At least (from experience as a user) there seem to be a singular "ss" codepoint.


>also believe parent is wrong as there are unambiguous rules about when to use ß or ss.

I never said it was ambiguous, I said it depends on the unicode version and the font you are using. How is that wrong? (Seems like the capital of ß is still SS in the latest unicode but since ẞ is the preferred capital version now this should change in the future)


> How is that wrong? Not sure where, how or if it's defined as part of Unicode, but so far I assumed that for a Unicode grapheme there exists a notion of what the visual representation should look like. If Unicode still defines capital of ß as SS that's an error in Unicode due to slow adaption of the changes in the German language.


"ß as SS that's an error in Unicode"

It's not. Uppercase of ß has always been SS.

Before we had a separate codepoint in Unicode this caused problems with round-tripping between upper and lower case. So Unicode rightfully introduced a separate codepoint specifically for that use case in 2008.

This inspired designers to design a glyph for that codepoint looking similar to ß. Nothing wrong with that.

Some liked the idea and it got some foothold, so in 2017, the Council for German Orthography allowed it as an acceptable variant.

Maybe it will win, maybe not, but for now in standard German the uppercase of ß is still SS and Unicode rightfully reflects that.


In unicode the default is still SS [1] while the Germans seem to have changed it to ẞ [2]. That means now it's the same on every system, but once the unicode standard changes and some systems get updated and others not there will be different behavior of len("ß".upper()) around.

I don't know how or if systems deal with this, but ß should be printed as ss if ß is unavailable in the font. It's possible this is completely up to the user.

[1] https://unicode.org/faq/casemap_charprop.html [2] https://www.rechtschreibrat.com/DOX/RfdR_Amtliches-Regelwerk...


"In unicode the default is still SS [1] while the Germans seem to have changed it to ẞ [2]."

Where does the source corroborate that claim? Can you give is a hint where to find the source?


page 48: > E3: Bei Schreibung mit Großbuchstaben ist neben der Verwendung des Groß buchstabens ẞ auch die Schreibung SS möglich: Straße – STRAẞE – STRASSE.

While in older versions [1] it was the other way around:

> E3: Bei Schreibung mit Großbuchstaben schreibt man SS. Daneben ist auch die Verwendung des Großbuchstabens ẞ möglich. Beispiel: Straße – STRASSE – STRAẞE.

[1] https://www.rechtschreibrat.com/DOX/rfdr_Regeln_2016_redigie...


ẞ is not the preferred capital version, it is an acceptable variant (according to the Council for German Orthography).


well I don't speak german, I was asking


I see, wasn't clear to me on what level you were asking. The letter ß has never been generally equivalent to ss in the German language.

From a user experience perspective though it might be beneficial to pretend that "ß" == "ss" holds when parsing user input.


You can decide if you want to get asked at startup.


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