This is such an individualist framing.

Yeah it turns out cozying up to evil powerful people can advance your personal position more than fighting against them, who knew?

Say what you will about Luke and accidental incest, but he’s not in the files, I’ll tell you that.

The “resource curse” is just people trying to pretend imperialism isn’t responsible. Norway has plenty of oil and they have a high quality of life, because nobody invaded them.

Plenty of these countries had leaders who wanted to use their resources to help the people, but the powers that be, most often the US, didn’t want that. And so for example Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, a peaceful, democratically elected progressive, was overthrown by the CIA, and he was replaced by a monarch who could be easily bribed and would use the oil to enrich himself. And when that monarch caved to domestic pressure and participated in an oil embargo, US support was withdrawn and he was overthrown and the current government came to power.

There’s no “mystery” or “curse.” It’s just imperialism. The story generally goes that these resources were stolen by force during colonialism and remained in foreign hands after independence and the country still functions as a neocolony, leading to poverty and exploitation, or war and instability if they challenge it.

So ban everyone but anarcho-pacifists from political discourse? Or does systemic violence not count?

The number of Chinese Marxist-Leninists alone vastly outnumbers us Western tankies. The vast majority of “tankies” live in various countries outside of the imperial core.

Even in the US, the most prominent and successful “tankie” organization was the Black Panther Party.

Who is this they you are talking about?

Your fucking government, dumbass. The EU. The people implementing the policy in question. I know y’all act like any criticism of the Israeli government is antisemitic, but does that protection now extend to any criticism of the EU?

I think not having ties with Russian state propaganda for living normally is a risk I’m willing to take, as its no effort for me.

Nothing to hide so you have nothing to fear, eh? Yeah, millions of Americans were fine with our government using extralegal punishments and detentions because they thought it would be limited to terrorists. Now we’re being dragged away to secret torture dungeons in El Salvador.

But fortunately, I’m sure that nothing bad will come of European governments having the tools to punish people without charge or trial. I mean, honestly, what do you even need rights for? Just trust the people in charge to sort out the good guys and the bad guys.

Say, unrelated, but how’s the AFD doing these days? And, purely hypothetically, if they got into government, how would you feel about them having a precedent that would allow them to apply these punishments to anyone they consider to have engaged in wrongthink?

All these other speculations you’re pointing to you would have to prove to me first.

What speculations would I have to prove? That domestic polls are unreliable?

I’ve seen a lot of people dismiss domestic polls in China that show overwhelming support for the government as unreliable. I’ve never seen one of them feel the need to prove it, or present a shred of evidence. In fact, when outside polls have confirmed those results, they just say that they’re all “brainwashed” or “propagandized.”

Not quite as fun when it’s your people’s perspective that’s being written off, is it?

while I don’t approve of the method

Is it safe for you to say this?

If you say something they don’t like, they could do the same to you, no charge, no trial. And criticizing that practice might be something they don’t like, even if not today, then maybe tomorrow.

You’re probably fine for now because you justified the actions by attacking the victim, but this might be as critical as you’re allowed to be.

I think we need to start getting some reliable, neutral outside polls on Europe to see how they really feel about their governments. Maybe we can bring in some Chinese pollsters. Obviously anyone voicing approval in domestic polls is just afraid of the repercussions of voicing a negative opinion.

Yes, I would. Or if he was to be removed, that should be up to the Libyans, without foreign interference.

Gaddafi was removed not because of any humanitarian reason but because he stood in the way of foreign interests. Gaddafi asserted Libyan control over Libyan oil and redirected at least some of that money towards the Libyan people (the per capita income in Libya under Gaddafi was 5th highest in Africa), and that was fundamentally unacceptable to the US and its allies, just as it has been in for nearly every country in the region. What they want are states like Saudi Arabia, where the ruling class can be bought off on a personal level to keep the oil flowing while repressing the people.

US/NATO led regime change never produces good outcomes for anyone but oil companies and war profiteers, and that’s by design. If they can’t control it, they can at least deny the resources to others and set an example for any other country that attempts to assert control over their own resources. NATO opened a pandora’s box of chaos and there’s no telling if or when it will end, just as US-led forces did in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

I’d say that you refuse to learn from history and seem dead-set on repeating the mistakes of the past, but again, they were never mistakes. The people making the decisions got exactly what they wanted, it’s only a mistake from the absolutely delusional perspective that intervention in places like Libya, Afghanistan, now Iran (yet again), were ever driven by any thought of helping ordinary people. The purpose of a system is what it does.

I don’t recall the UN resolution telling them to assassinate Gaddafi and destabilize the country.

Was Libya also populated by Chinese bots?

But you’re telling him he doesn’t understand basic economics

We already have perfectly fine meat substitutes. Have you actually tried them? They’ve come a long way.

I don’t know that lab grown meat will ever be able to replace meat if people keep eating it at the same rate. Besides, there’s nothing I, as an individual, can do to advance the progress lab grown meat. I can help advance the progress of meat substitutes by… buying them instead of meat.

Cutting meat out of my life saves the lives of countless animals. That is a lot more practical than wishing upon a star that lab grown meat was more developed or economically viable.

Weird how you’re allowed to read in motives whenever anyone else asks a question, yet you saw no need to establish relevance to the questions you asked me. Clearly, based on the irrelevant questions you asked “out of curiosity” prove that your real positions are not what you claim, since that’s how it works, apparently.

Why do I keep bothering to point out all the many, many points of hypocrisy, double-standards, and self-contradiction of this unapologetic chauvinist? I can’t say.

4% support is “overwhelming?” Lmao I don’t think so. Can I get some of what you two are smoking?

The graph is overwhelmingly pro-status quo. Literally all four of the top responses are some variation of that.

How is the way I read a poll means I am trying to tell Taiwan what to do?

Because “the way you read the poll” is by throwing out the overwhelming majority of responses and focusing exclusively on the people who agree with your position.

Quote me. Quote me where I said they should seek independence right now.

Easy:

I don’t know. Am I doing that when I say that Taiwan should ideally be an independent state because that’s ultimately what they want?

Done.

When did I say the poll should be “thrown out”? I’m just giving my reading of it.

Easy:

What we can see is that, eliminating the safe, friction-free option of status quo

Done.

As compared to 1% wanting unification.

Who fucking cares! We’re talking about 4% vs 1%! What about what everybody else wants??

Who is doing this? Name people actively trying to encourage this.

Skavau@piefed.social, for starters.

Do you think people answer polls like this with no understanding or regard of actual geopolitical reality, or something?

No, what I think is that actual geopolitical reality is a relevant factor that shouldn’t just be arbitrarily disregarded, as you seem to want. Incorporating material conditions into your poll response is not grounds for it being thrown out, jfc.

No, eliminating the safe, friction-free option of status quo shows that 4% want to officially seek independence.

The majority wants to maintain the status quo without moving in either direction. A supermajority wants to maintain the status quo while moving in one direction or the other. But all of their voices are ignored by chauvinistic Westerners who want to ignore what they want and force the issue because that’s what they want, and the actual popular will can easily be written off and disregarded with these nonsense excuses like “they only say that because they’re being influenced by the existing material conditions” and “if we ignore 95% of the responses, people actually agree with me.”

Reducing it to a binary choice is the very definition of a false dichotomy.

I didn’t say anything should change. Just that they do not want to be incorporated into China.

That’s not what you said. What you actually said was “Taiwan should ideally be an independent state because that’s ultimately what they want?” That sounds a lot like calling for formal independence, not the status quo.

Well, fortunately I have Westerners to tell me what the Taiwanese people want so I don’t have to worry about what they actually say.

And Taiwan is already a de facto independent state.

Right, which is why throwing the situation into chaos to force a non-issue is completely absurd.