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China is responsible for 75% of poverty reduction

Yep. Capitalism is pretty great even when applied dishonestly.

chinas median wage is now higher than some european countries, and it is only growing

Are billionaires good?

women in gdr had more orgasms than women in the west

No arguments here, that’s fucking awesome. Best argument for communism I’ve ever seen, no sarcasm.

Didn’t realize it was communism that continually extracted wealth from the global south for near 500 years

It might be a bit difficult task for communism to pull off, given how it’s about 200 years old.

meddled in their politics constantly to benefit private interests, and kept them in a constant state of undevelopment for cheap labor and raw materials

USSR wasn’t nearly as shitty as European countries were for their colonies, but they did do some shady stuff with their satellite countries in East Europe at least, quite notably Ukraine. Difficult to say how that would’ve went if they had been given the opportunity to do this for longer than the ~80 years they got before collapsing.

China adapted parts of the capitalist system and subsequently their poverty reduced massively. It could be that they implemented free markets better or perhaps it’s more likely that they started so much lower.

but I’m not sure how a “free market” ran by people who follow the philosophy that companies only have the responsibility to answer to shareholders will generate wealth for “many.”

A singular goal gives them focus, and a simple system is ideally more efficient than a complex system. It’s the job of the society to enforce upon them a framework where that focus can be applied in a way that doesn’t cause negative value.

Skew is not exactly what we’re seeing here.

2013 was just before the start of Russia’s invasion and illegal annexation of a part of Ukraine. Things were very different.

Also, it was before massive social media, Trump and the woke thing, so USA resembled a sane place.

Half of the world was communist for most part of the 1900s. It has certainty been tried, and it failed spectacularly.

It gets massively better for almost everyone, which unfortunately doesn’t help the minority for whom it doesn’t.

In practice, what would stop me from taking the money and not doing what they want? Assassination risk?

Take 1000 million in bribes and distribute it to poor people, lol.

Most parents: lol, I’m with this screaming 24/7/365. Fuck your grief :) :)

Cynically mass influencing opinion is immoral. Using automated software to do that is doubly immoral.

The fact that Russians are doing this is not controversial, it is widely documented. Whether they’re doing it here is perhaps questionable, but then again, Lemmy and its APIs are free to use so why wouldn’t they.

I stood my ground against the asshole second founder of the company. Not only was he a horrible person, but he also made bad decisions that could not be criticized.

Oh my no.

Other than Russia’s actions, things have been becoming better. Even though that war makes lots of things worse, it has done much to get the world make larger steps towards getting rid of fossil fuels.

I’m generally optimistic. The economic curves go up and down, but the overall trend is up.

I haven’t heard of any such exemptions, but I guess it will be really tested only if we have to go to war. It has been almost 80 years since the last time.

I fully think that every euro spent on defense is a horrible waste of resources in global sense, but it’s necessary to prevent every place on this planet being ruled by who are essentially barbarians.

It’s not ridiculous when the most probable enemy has a significantly worse governance.

In Finland, (male) children of the elite serve in the conacription army just like everyone else. But of course if that doesn’t apply, it’s not great.

I don’t claim to know what is causing this, but definitely we’re quite a lot beyond what used to be normal statistics.