Another reason could be that it makes the act of watching a video feel less lonely than it actually is. Reaction videos turn it into a quasi-social thing.

Yes, but you also need to look at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). PPP compares the relative value of currencies by measuring the price of a basket of goods in different countries. Accounting for that, China’s GDP per capita is more like $30k. To do that in a little over 70 years, when in 1952 83% of China’s workforce was engaged in agriculture, is nothing short of amazing. They are already well on their way to reducing their dependence on non-renewable energy and seem poised to overtake the US as the technological powerhouse of the world within the next 50 years.

I take pride in my Quebecois accent tyvm. It’s the accent of the common man and it helps me avoid the unbearable snobs who sneer at people for having the gall to speak differently to them.

A system where you take money out of the equation. You’re right that we have to take human behaviour into account. That’s one of the more prominent critiques for Marx by neo-marxists. I’m not saying that we replace capitalism overnight. The technological progress brought about by capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty (albeit at the cost of irreparable damage to the biosphere) but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for a better system. In the meantime, being aware of the pitfalls of capitalism and trying to build class consciousness and a more equitable society is still a worthwhile goal to have. It took hundreds of years for capitalism to evolve and entrench, going from feudalism to Industrialization and now Technological Oligarchy. It pervades so much of our thought, culture and way of life that any proposed alternative is seen as wildly radical. We have to learn to gradually disengage from it if we hope to bring lasting change.

The problem is, though, that money allows politicians in a democracy to run a better, more effective campaign. So whoever gets the support of rich people is more likely to win. In that sense, modern democracies aren’t equitable systems anymore. One person does not mean one vote anymore because one person with a billion dollars has an outsized influence. You correctly identified the problem that a handful of corporations control own and control the essential services we need to live our lives but that’s because capitalism allows that. Capitalism is the problem.

• Cozy
• Authentic
• Lately, it feels like everything on Reddit is treated like a joke, and you see an endless string of puns and snarky comments. I like that you can have a serious discussion about a topic on Lemmy without it unraveling unlike Reddit.

It was a tongue-in-cheek response. The English alphabet doesn’t convey pronunciation.

If gif is pronounced gif, then gnome should be pronounced gnome

And then they encounter the horrible mess that is the Hyprland discord and run back to KDE or GNOME. There’s hope with Cosmic yet.

I’m more surprised by the bunions on her feet. Unfortunately, deformed feet like that are all too common, thanks to our collective obsession with pointed shoes.

Good point, meme-that’s-trying-to-control-me!

Who’s going to assault him? The guy’s a champion of the working class.

Replying to my own comment for additional context:

They’re not talking about the two unmasked photos in the article. If you look at the photos of the masked shooter, he had a different backpack (white/beige instead of black) and a different hoodie(no chest pockets).

We can use Niagara Falls for that!

Kahn is the real deal.

It’s Khan

You still haven’t answered my question and are instead falling back on dogma. Revolutions work when the oppressed are acutely aware of their oppression and unite against the oppressors. You cannot realistically do that when half the working class thinks that that are the beneficiaries of capitalism.

No comment on the real cost of a revolution? I guess we disagree on a fundamental level. Good day.

It absolutely was propaganda because the capitalist class perpetuated the lie that progressive policies would hurt the country. Neoliberals, through the use of rhetoric in the media, helped popularize the idea of the infallible free market – that was propaganda. Nation states don’t have to staunchly be strictly capitalist or communist; social democracies do work, with the caveat that citizens have to be well-informed and act as stewards to protect and exercise their electoral rights in shaping a nation.

I’m well aware of Historical Materialism. My contention to your larger point, in short, was that the way forward has to be meticulous and measured. Accelerating the downfall of the system in place will have a real, disastrous impact on the lives of the existing working class. We cannot destroy lives on the promise that it will get better. Class consciousness is step 1, but we’re not even there yet.

Of course it was because of the material conditions at the time and because the capitalist class felt threatened by the rise of communism and felt a need to combat it. It was still propaganda though and it has irreparably damaged the American psyche. Btw, the material conditions at the time were not all hunk-dory either. There was massive wealth disparity between “white” Americans and African -Americans. Minorities were still fighting widespread discrimination which prevented them the enjoy the same freedoms and prosperity as the rest of America.