• E_coli42@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    I forget what the fallacy is called, but basically just because thing X is associated with Y and Y is bad doesn’t make X bad. If a communist leader killed people, it doesn’t necessarily mean communism is the reason he killed them.

    In the same vain saying fascism is bad “because Hitler was a fascist” would also be a logical fallacy. Hitler also drank water but that doesn’t mean water is bad.

    • DougPiranha42@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      That’s not a very good example, because good and bad people drink water, pretty much everyone does. Here is a list of communist states:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states_(communism)

      I’d say that all of these sucked to live in. There are definitely states that treat their citizens better than these. If something always leads to death and suffering, maybe we can conclude that it’s a bad idea. Communists are not “associated with“ communism, they are communism.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        As I said elsewhere:

        Every socialist state that has ever existed has been, contextually, far better than what came before it, and in instances where socialism dissolved, better than what replaced it, for the working classes.

        This is true for all of these. What’s also important is analyzing context, life expectancy doubled in both Russia and China thanks to the lives saved by socialism. Cuba has, in many years, a higher life expectancy than the US Empire. On the whole, there may be states where quality of life is higher for the working classes, but these are exclusively imperialist states that subsidize their safety nets with the spoils of plundering the global south, and is why these same countries are surging to the far-right as imperialism is decaying.

        • DougPiranha42@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          Ok there is too much crazy stuff there for me to take you seriously. If you’re a person and this is your genuine position, that makes me sad. People learn nothing from history.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            3 hours ago

            I hold the positions I do because I learn from history. Here are some sources on what you call “crazy:”

            Life expectancy from birth, Russia

            Life expectancy from birth, China

            Death rate and birth rate in Russia, before, during, and after socialism

            Wealth inequality in Russia, before, during, and after socialism

            US vs. Chinese vs. Cuban life expectancy

            Unequal exchange, graphed

            The truth is that socialism works remarkably well, and I only came to this position after studying socialism in theory and practice. Same with analyzing the downfall of capitalism and imperialism, and the failures of social democracy in Europe to pivot away from imperialism.

            • DougPiranha42@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              Ffs if birth rates went up in the third reich then people should be thankful for fascism and hitler? Was west germany a poor amd depressing dictatorship and east germany a free and prosperous country, or the other way around? Blocking.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                3 hours ago

                In the case of Germany, Eastern Germany was made to pay war reparations for the incredible damages dealt to the soviet peoples, and the 27 million people they murdered. Western Germany slapped the Nazis on their wrists, and was flooded with western cash. The social safety nets in Eastern Germany were more developed and robust, while the west had more money. West Germany was indeed a dictatorship, and certainly not free and prosperous, though it had money. Eastern Germany was poor, but had much better social care, social progressivism, and more.

                Go ahead, block easily verifiable facts and statistics, I’m sure that will end up helping you.

        • Riverside@reddthat.com
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          6 hours ago

          Edit: replied to the wrong comment lmao

          I’d say that all of these sucked to live in

          And you’d be wrong to say so. Polls in most post-communist states (except some exceptionally right wing nationalist regimes such as the Baltics or Poland) clearly tell us that most people preferred living under socialism.

          When talking about the effects of socialism, we need to compare with what came before or after. And what came after was horrifying:

          • Dicska@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Ahem. I wonder if non-communist states are any different, or it’s just that birth rates dipped before/during a World War, and they were all climbing back up until ~the '80s?

            • Riverside@reddthat.com
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              6 hours ago

              Would be an interesting thing to sed. My graphs are Wikipedia screenshots from the “Demographics of X” for each country mentioned. Would you post some from, say, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, US…?

              • Dicska@lemmy.world
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                29 minutes ago

                Sorry, the last time I was commenting from the toilet. I’ve done some looking up:

                France:

                Spain:

                Germany:

                Italy:

                I mean, I know that 5 countries isn’t considered reliable statistics, I guess, but most of them are also on the rise in the given time period. Italy and a few other countries seemingly had a dip.